Baryte (superb rare ''floater'' specimen)

Item Description

This is an important and honestly remarkable Baryte specimen from the Irhoud Mine (labeled as Jrhoud in Kurt's collection catalogue). If you look on mindat.org, the Baryte specimens from this locality feature typically, thin bladed crystals with a soft sandy hue and only slight translucency, but this piece features a dominant, thick, robust crystal with a genuine colorless interior and great gemminess. What's more, there are a few additional crystals on the lower side of the piece of equal quality (some have a minor amount of iron oxide inclusions), and if you look all over, you'll see that the piece is completely crystallized on all sides, making this a rare and impressive complete "floater"! The underside looks as though it detached from the pocket wall, and has totally re-crystallized ("re-healed"). I've never seen a Baryte like this from any Moroccan locality that I can remember. It's virtually damage free, and displays quite well as you can see. If you're a fan of worldwide Barytes, Moroccan minerals, or just impressive crystallized display specimens, don't miss out on this one. I would fairly put this piece in the $4,000-$5,000 range if I had it for sale on a shelf at a show as it's big, showy and fine quality all over, and it's from a rare Moroccan locale! From the collection of Kurt Hefendehl (#152 Mo), 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 coming months and years through our various platforms.