Beryl var: Aquamarine (classic locality)

Item Description

Mt. Antero is one of the most famous historic pegmatite localities in the western United States. The locality has been producing excellent Aquamarine specimens, with rich color and sometimes excellent transparency since the 1880s. Collecting takes place at an elevation of over 13,000 feet, making it one of the highest elevations for collecting in the United States. The piece is a rich blue colored hexagonal prism of Aquamarine with good luster on the prism faces and some light surface etching. When backlit, there are areas of good internal gemminess that can be seen. The termination is complete, but has a slightly interrupted form where it presumably grew against the pocket wall. Lastly, the piece has an almost "cat's eye"-like effect on the surface, which is not unheard of for this material, and gives the piece character. A lovely toenail sized crystal for any fan of gem crystals, Beryls or minerals from Colorado / Mt Antero. Specimen weight is 13.50 grams.
This piece comes from the personal collection of Colorado mining legend, Dave Bergman, the maternal grandfather of Brian Kosnar. Dave is now retired from mining, but he worked for decades in various mines underground in Colorado, as a miner, mechanic, engineer, shift boss and foreman. His biggest claim to fame is that he was the foreman and the primary person in charge of mining and specimen recovery at the Sweet Home Mine in Colorado in the 1970s alongside his son-in-law, Rich Kosnar. This project what was the FIRST ever operation for specimen recovery at this historic locality. A full-page photograph of Dave can be seen mining underground at the Sweet Home in on page 58 of Peter Bancroft's book "Gem and Crystal Treasures".