Celestine (RARE locality specimen) (ex Gary Weaver Collection)

Item Description

At first glance, I thought this had to be a Celestine from Madagascar. It was labeled as coming from Ute Pass, west of Manitou Springs, which is just west of Colorado Springs, Colorado. After a search on mindat.org, I found a picture of a similar specimen from the Washington Roebling collection in the Smithsonian that was posted by Rock Currier (https://www.mindat.org/photo-275569.html). The locality for the piece in the Smithsonian is Garden of the Gods, which as the crow flies is only a couple miles from Ute Pass, so it stands to reason that this piece is legit. With that said, I'm not 100% convinced as I've never seen a single piece of this material in person, so I cannot say with certainly that the locality is truly accurate, so please keep this in mind when bidding. If anybody out there has some information about this material, please let us know, as we'd love to get some deeper knowledge about these specimens. With that said, this piece is an exposed geode featuring several sharp, lustrous, GEMMY, soft grey-blue colored crystals of Celestine measuring up to 1.7 cm long. The piece is a bit rough, and I can't find a crystal that is completely pristine, so it's mostly a reference specimen, but it's still a rarity in terms of the locality. From the collection of Gary Weaver of Prescott, Arizona (1944-2019). Gary was an electrical engineer who worked for many years for Hughes Aircraft in California. You can read Gary's obituary here https://www.dcourier.com/news/2019/apr/27/obituary-gary-richard-weaver/