Baryte on Quartz w/ Limonite (Kay Robertson Coll.)

Item Description

Limonite coatings add a most colorful aspect to this dramatic and sculptural large elongated jackstraw cluster of sharp, very glassy, transparent barite blades on massive quartz from this old, extinct fluorite, galena, sphalerite mine in the Italian Alps. The two large dominating blades are 4.0 and 3.8 cm. Expertly collected, as nearly all of the blades (one gently bruised large blade) on this very fine two-sided piece are pristine. Ex Kay Robertson Collection # 1727 and acquired from Scott Williams in Long Beach in July, 1960. Kay is a prominent California collector, who specialized in European classics (see the article in the March-April, 2007 Mineralogical Record). Limonite coated barites are very uncommon from here and this is an exceptional large example.