Baryte (classic material)

Item Description

The iconic Barytes from Stoneham, which lies about 25 miles west of Sterling are some of, if not the most well-known and finest quality blue Barytes from any locality in the United States. The combination of good sized, gemmy crystals with excellent compositions/arrangements makes them not only instantly recognizable, but superior to many other Barytes from around the country. This piece is a majestic and striking near large cabinet sized display specimen hosting a group of fine quality, sharp, lustrous, gemmy/translucent prismatic crystals of Baryte measuring up to 9.6 cm long, sitting on matrix with a bit of Calcite on the back. The piece is one of the largest examples we've had from this locality, and is in amazingly good condition for the size, as only minor imperfections can be seen on the display side. Keep in mind that a good percentage of the pieces from this locality are either miniature or small cabinets, not nearly 6-inches like this piece, and it's a matrix specimen, which is also not easy to find in a Stoneham Baryte, most of them are off matrix. A truly impressive and important piece from this well-known locality. The specimen was collected in 1989 by Bryan Lees, and was part of John Betts' personal collection (#238).
Ex George Loud Collection No. 28.3.1.1 CO.31; 8900. 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