Calcite (very rare locality specimen) (ex Henry de Linde Collection)

Item Description

An incredibly hard to find specimen from the Blanchard Springs Caverns, an underground cave system in northern Arkansas. This locality lies within a National Park, where collecting is now forbidden, so it's virtually impossible to get your hands on a piece of this material today. The specimen features a pair of gemmy, pale golden color, thin prismatic crystals of Calcite with a few accenting terminations of smaller Calcites running along the length of the main crystals. The largest crystal is contacted on the termination, but the smaller Calcite is in superb condition. A must have specimen for any worldwide Calcite collector, a fan of rare locality specimens or unusual thumbnails. This piece is from the collection of Henry de Linde (March 21, 1923 – April 4, 2019) of Hot Spring, Arkansas and is accompanied by a hand-written label that states it was obtained from Don Williams. Henry was one of the most prominent figures in the history of Arkansas mining and mineral collecting. Along with being a miner, mineral collector and an amateur mineralogist, de Linde was one of the founders of the Coon Creek Association mineral club. He was the owner of several key localities in Arkansas including the Diamond Jo Quarry (on the south rim of Magnet Cove), the type locality for Delindeite, which was named in his honor in 1987.