Calcite (doubly-terminated) on blue Fluorite

Item Description

A wonderfully beautiful and eye-catching association specimen from the famed Minerva No. 1 Mine in Hardin County, Illinois featuring many fine quality, well-formed, tapered trigonal prismatic crystals of golden colored Calcite which are sitting atop a GEMMY, rich blue colored partial cubic crystal of Fluorite. Many of the Calcites are actually doubly-terminated, and the largest one measures about 4.7 cm long. The Fluorite shows a slight amount of purple color zoning on the outer edge, but it's largely blue in color, and it's about as saturated as it gets for the size from this locality. Blue is arguably the most desirable hue from this classic locality, and the wonderful Calcite association makes the piece all the more desirable. The piece is in amazingly good condition, as a large number of the Calcites are undamaged, and although the Fluorite is not complete, the front face is in fine shape. What a showy and eye-catching, three-dimensional display specimen from this now closed, historic locality. Valued $7,500.
From the collection of Jack Halpern No. 3591. Jack was born May 18, 1920 in Brooklyn, New York, but has been a long-time resident of San Francisco. He assembled one of the great mineral collections in the world encompassing over 3,200 specimens with a specific emphasis on color, quality, and style/aesthetics, which is evident in every piece. He admired specimens of all sizes from thumbnails to large cabinets and the vast majority of them rank from fine to world-class in their quality.
Above all else, Jack is considered to be the greatest gentleman in the modern era of mineral collecting. He is beloved by all those who have met him, and he truly is one of the most iconic figures in the mineral world. We recently acquired Jack's collection, and the VAST majority of these pieces will be offered here in the auctions, as we feel that everyone deserves and equal opportunity at acquiring these important, well-documented and fine quality pieces for their collections. We are honored to have the opportunity to offer Jack's treasures to everyone on a regular basis in the auctions.
We encourage you to read our blog post at https://www.irocks.com/the-jack-halpern-collection or his profile on the Mineralogical Record website https://mineralogicalrecord.com/biographies_labels/halpernjack/ for more information