Celestine with Hematite coating (Robert Whitmore Coll.)

Item Description

A striking, two-sided, L-shaped specimen of glassy and lustrous, light blue celestine blades with chisel terminations from an uncommon locality in Tunisia. The blades are coated with starkly contrasting, rust-red hematite with great effect. The frontal display view is pristine and a bit of trivial edgewear is out of sight on the back. This piece was collected in 1998 by Dan Weinrich and Don Edwards from a giant walk-in vug. These were initially mis-identified as barite. An XRF analysis on a typical specimen found it to be fairly pure SrSO4. Seldom seen on the market today. Ex Robert Whitmore Collection. valued $500-600