Beryl var: Aquamarine (GEMMY crystals)

Item Description

Aquamarine crystals from Pakistan are some of the finest examples of this blue variety of Beryl ever found. The sheer volume of supreme quality crystals that have been found in the last 30 years or so is truly impressive. This piece is very close to being a complete "floater" as it's crystallized all over, and even the underside is re-crystallized ("re-healed"), along with the little accenting crystals near the base, so there really isn't any damage of note. The only point of contact I can find where it a bit of attached white colored Feldspar is embedded along the prism. The main crystal is glassy, very sharp, and well-formed, showing textbook hexagonal form with that classic icy blue color for which this material is known. It's certainly gemmy enough to yield some good sized gemstones, but I would never condone destroying a specimen of this quality. A tiny bit of thin prismatic black Schorl can be seen at the termination of the main crystal, along with a few accenting pyramidal crystal faces for a nice touch. Lastly, it's difficult to illustrate in photos/video, but if you look closely, you can see repeating hexagonal growth lines on the surface of the prism faces of the main crystal, which is not terribly common for Beryl in general, and rarely seen in Pakistani Aquas. Specimen weight is 55.40 grams. Valued at $3,500 retail. From the collection of Vasco Trancoso, a medical doctor and prominent mineral collector from near Lisbon, Portugal (https://www.mindat.org/user-11954.html). He assembled his mineral collection over the course of 60 years, and built a fine worldwide display collection that we recently purchased. This piece is pictured on mindat.org at https://www.mindat.org/photo-187845.html