Baryte (classic locality)

Item Description

These Barytes are some of the most iconic examples of the species from any California locality, and they are found in the hills, just over a mile from the coast in the Palos Verdes Peninsula in Los Angeles County. This piece originally was part of the collection of Roger Barnett and was in a display of Baryte specimens that won 1st place at an AFMS National Show in the mid 1980s. These specimens are true classics, and have been known for decades (I found a reference for the material in Rocks and Minerals that dates back to 1933), but are not nearly as prevalent on the market as they once were. This big heft near large cabinet display specimen is filled with excellent, sharp, lustrous, well-formed, bladed crystals of Baryte measuring up to 2.7 cm on edge, showing a mixture of soft beige-tan and silvery hues, free of matrix. The underside of the specimen features smaller lighter cream colored Barytes. No major damage to the vast majority of the crystals, and the piece is very displayable and showy.
Ex George Loud Collection No. 28.3.1.1 CA.1; 7211 George (born August 16, 1942) is a well-known mineral collector from Washington, DC and South Carolina respectively, and was a patent lawyer by trade for over 50 years. He assembled one of the great mineral collections in the U.S., comprising worldwide specimens, and in later years he sold the worldwide specimens to focus on minerals of the United States, specifically locality suites with an emphasis on amazing representation of species while still maintaining fine quality. The specimens remarkably range from micros to all the way up to large cabinets in size. We recently acquired most of his impressive 9000+ piece collection, and the VAST majority of these pieces will be offered here in the auctions, as we feel that everyone deserves and equal opportunity at acquiring these important, well-documented and fine quality specimens for their collections.
See: https://mineralogicalrecord.com/biographies_labels/george-loud for more information