Beryl (important historic specimen - collected circa 1929)

Item Description

Here we have a significant and important old historic Beryl crystal from the little known Cummings Quarry in Oxford County, Maine. This old locality is part of the Oxford Pegmatite Field, but specimens from this quarry are virtually non-existent on the market. For reference, the label designates this locality in Albany (which was disincoporated in 1937), but it is now part of South Oxford. The piece is a fairly robust/thick, well-formed crystal with sharp distinct faces along the prism, but the termination is crude, though it does show some pyramidal faces. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the piece is that it not only shows 1sr order prism faces, but there are distinct 2nd and 3rd order modifying prism faces as well. The label also notes that there is an impression from a Columbite crystal that grew into the Beryl at one point. The exterior of the crystal is a brown hue due to iron inclusions, but if you look closely, you can see the internal color of the crystal is a lovely greenish-blue shade. There is even a bit of translucency in areas when the crystal is backlit. Specimen weight is 270 grams. This is the first and only specimen we've ever seen from this locality, and it's a must have locality specimen for any fan of pegmatite minerals, worldwide Beryls, minerals of New England or specifically Maine. The piece has the added pedigree of coming from the collection of Thurston M. Phetteplace (1912-1995), the well-known mineral collector and dealer who was born in Rhode Island, received his Master's Degree in Geology at the University of Washington in 1954, and started his mineral business in Colorado shortly afterwards. This specimen is #63 in Phetteplace's collection, and the history portion of the label states that it was "Personally collected about 1929", which was a very early entry in his collection (he was 17 years old), right after he started attending school at Brown University. You can read more about Phetteplace at https://mineralogicalrecord.com/biographies_labels/phetteplacethurston-m/