Calcite ps. Aragonite on Sulfur (circa early 1900s)

Item Description

This is a significant historic pseudomorph specimen from a significant locality but I am sure the previous owner simply filed those labels and put on his shelf for what it looks like, aside from the bonus of rarity and history. Jack Halpern collected minerals for 60 years not for the significance or the localities; but simply because things were beautiful. If he ended up with an old classic like this, he bought it 99 percent for the beauty and not at all for the labels and history. So that tells you something, first off...it really is pretty, in a sparkly white sugary style. Most such specimens that survived from the turn of the 1900s of this material are grungy and dirty looking, either because that is how they formed or because of mine conditions perhaps (these mines had a lot of petroleum, and some crystals are just stained). This is perhaps the largest clean and sugary white piece we have seen, and certainly of which we have had for sale. Crystals reach 4 cm and the piece is nearly perfectly preserved - especially when you consider the size of this compared to most specimens we have seen in the 2-4 inch range. The stark contrast of the white crystals of calcite with sulfur is beautiful! Those elongated white crystals are sharp aragonite crystals, long since replaced by calcite. They are, somewhat, hollow in places - you can see inside a few of them. Also, the calcite must have a trace of manganese, because it is fluorescent as a bonus. Old minerals from the Italian sulfur mines in Sicily have graced collections since the dawn of the European age of mineralogy, both because they were simply beautiful and because of the sheer number of people going to the mines and working them back in the days when they were needed for gunpowder sulfur. These were among the most famous of European locations. This particular region, and a group of mines in Agrigento (you will see it as different versions of this name on old labels), produced both sulfur and these fascinating and elegant replacement specimens which remain unique - 100 years later, and are perhaps the most classic of all other finds here. Such specimens turn up in old collections. The piece probably started as a lot purchase in Italy around the time it came out in 1900 as it carries a label from Ward's circa 1900 (this label format was used by Henry Ward in the 1890s and early 1900s as shown in the MR label archives), and then ended up with Walt Lidstrom in some later collection purchase; and on to Jack Halpern in the 1960s - where it has remained since. We simply see so few of these for sale anymore, and this is a GIANT and a beauty as well. Jack bought this from his favorite dealer Walt Lidstrom in the 1960s as #722 in a collection that at its peak had over 3500 specimens. It would have been a major purchase at that time, when a few hundred dollars bought a world-class mineral. Today, for a combination of beauty and size and significance, this is easily a $7500-plus specimen. It was one of under 100 or so large specimens Jack kept all these decades, to accent his smaller specimens. As a final bonus, note the strong UV fluorescence in the later photo.