Babingtonite (fine quality)

Item Description

The Deccan Trap in India has been a source of literally hundreds of thousands of mineral specimens over the last few decades, and while they are best-known for they're excellent Zeolite species, there are plenty of other non-Zeolite minerals found in the various basalt flows that are equally impressive in terms of quality. This is a rarely seen specimen of Babingtonite from the Malad Quarry (erroneously labeled as coming from Pune originally) featuring a 1.6 cm, highly lustrous, jet-black crystal group that is aesthetically flaring off a layer of muted green botryoidal Prehnite on basalt matrix. There are a few tiny WATER-CLEAR Quartz prisms on the piece for a nice touch as well. No damage and very showy! A really fine quality example of these classic and now notably hard to find Babingtonites. Valued at $1,750. From the collection of Kurt Hefendehl (#7 IN), a well-known German collector all over Europe with worldwide contacts to dealers and collectors. He started collecting seriously at the age of 14 and his great and varied worldwide collection reached over 6000 pieces. He was very active mineralogically until shortly before his passing in 2020 at the age of 82. Considering his collection had a large number of pieces, it still had an unusually high standard of quality from most worldwide localities. He particularly specialized in all classics as well as minerals of the Black Forest, where he spent much time collecting. His Black Forest and German subcollections went to his good friend Wolfgang Wendel. We at The Arkenstone have the privilege of offering the remainder of this great worldwide collection over the next two to three years through our various platforms.