Blue Tiger's Eye (ex Willard Wulff Collectio)

Item Description

A rarely seen specimen of the desirable blue Tiger's Eye from South Africa. This material for a long time was thought to be Quartz replacing an amphibole species (like Riebeckite or Crocidolite), but recent information has shown that this is not a replacement, but rather Quartz growing through a crack-seal vein-filling process. This piece features traditional golden Tiger's Eye on the exterior, but the interior is actually unaltered blue Crocidolite. The piece comes from the collection of Willard W. Wulff (1904-1998) of Colorado Springs, Colorado, a prominent figure and collector of Colorado minerals. Wulff was one of the founding members of the Colorado Springs Mineralogical Society in 1936. You can read Willard's bio on the Mineralogical Record website here ( http://www.minrec.org/labels.asp?colid=1528 ). The piece comes with a typed 3x5 index card label from Wulff that states the piece was acquired from Tony Amshoff of Kino Rocks and Minerals in Tucson, Arizona. The label states (erroneously) that the blue color is caused by "sun or heat", but this is not the case. A wonderfully historic and eye-catching specimen of this well known material from the classic locality.