Baryte on Calcite (Halpern Coll.)

Item Description

The big septarian concretions from Elk Creek in western South Dakota produce abundant Calcite and some fossils but yield few choice specimens hosting large, root beer colored Baryte crystals on contrasting yellow Calcite such as this one. This well-composed and well-balanced specimen represents one of the few cabinet pieces hosting large, undamaged, and unrepaired Baryte we have seen in recent years and it comes from Jack Halpern's collection. It hosts seven, high-quality, root beer colored crystals from 1.5 to 5 cm (2 inches!) in length in a very aesthetic arrangement! The color ranges from a honey-brown at their centers to root beer brown at the rims. All have steep, pristine, and perfect, wedge-shaped terminations with great luster. The prism faces have some subtle growth features on the faces for added interest and textural complexity. Remarkably, as these form in tight concretions and are almost impossible to gently extract, this piece is not repaired nor damaged as are so many specimens on the market from contemporary finds here, when they do come out. An older specimen in this kind of quality is even more remarkable given the lack of modern equipment at the time. This was collected by Ken Roberts, who found many of the best over the decades here and sold by Ken to Jack. A classic and beautiful combination specimen from Elk Creek with size and balance, often seen priced highly by the folks currently mining the main claim there. This locality is described in the Mineralogical Record by Campbell et al., 1987, v. 18, no. 2. We are truly honored to present this specimen from another lot of deaccessions from the collection of Jack Halpern of San Francisco (for more info: https://www.irocks.com/the-jack-halpern-collection). Valued at least in the $5000-7500 range fairly based on that modern examples (mostly of lesser quality in my opinion) that we have seen seem to be regularly priced at $10-20k at Denver and Tucson shows, in recent years. Also, this has no repairs or problems that often are seen in modern specimens. This was collected "old school" in the days before labs, and was a lucky find!