Babingtonite & Calcite (classic locale, 1940s find) ex Panczner Coll.

Item Description

Babingtonite, an uncommon complex silicate, is a signature and hihgly collectible US species from this well-known traprock quarry. This is a competition-level thumbnail of the species from a USA locale! A 2.2 cm, lustrous, jet-black crystal is aesthetically set among calcite crystal sections on the thin basalt matrix on this classic and excellent combination specimen that HAPPENS to be a full thumbnail size. The outside edge of the babingtonite was contacted against the vug wall, but there is no actual damage. Ex Bill and Sharon Panczner Thumbnail Collection and acquired in the 1960s to 1980s as they built it (he relayed that this is from the Ed Marcin Coillection, and Ed was one of the collectors here in the 1940s when this came out from a single remarkable pocket). The piece is from their award winning competition thumbnails. Bill was the first Curator of Earth Science at the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum in 1974 and the author of the 1987 book Minerals of Mexico. It is the most thorough summary of the subject. Read about Bill in the Mineralogical Record Biographical Archive at: https://mineralogicalrecord.com/labels.asp?colid=841. Westfield babingtonites were the world's finest for at least a century and highly prized, until the recent Chinese finds. And yet, those are different, and also very hard to get in a thumbnail size. These are still teh standard, nearly 80 years later. A very fine combination thumbnail from the historic USA East Coast. Value? Hard to say as they RARELY turn up on the market!