Chabazite with Stilbite/Stellerite (ex Bill and Anne Cook Collection)

Item Description

A beautiful association specimen from Rudny dating back to the late 1980s - early 1990s. This locality is best known for its superb gem twinned golden Calcite crystals, but the associated zeolite species are certainly in the upper tier of what the Sokolovskoe Mine has to offer. This piece features sharp, lustrous, well-formed, beautiful soft peach-salmon colored pseudo-rhombic crystals of Chabazite measuring up to 1.0 cm which are associated with golden-orange colored semi-spherical groups of what is labeled as Stilbite, but they could be Stellerite as well. It's virtually impossible to tell the two minerals apart visually, and I've seen confirmed specimens of both Stilbite and Stellerite associated with Chabazite from this locality. The largest Stilbite/Stellerite "ball" measures 1.1 cm across. Good quality overall, though it's a bit rough around the periphery where the piece was removed from the pocket wall. Priced in the inventory at $975. You never see these on the market anymore, and they are a great "time capsule" reminder of what was coming out of the locality at the time. From the collection of William ("Bill") (1927-2006) and Anne (1928-2021) Cook of Cleveland, Ohio. The piece comes with a label from the St. Petersburg Mining Institute Museum. This husband and wife duo were actively involved in the mineral world for many decades. Bill was a PhD geologist, and Anne was a mathematician, and they both were very serious mineral collectors. Bill served for many years as adjunct curator of mineralogy at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, and Anne was inducted into the Micromounters' Hall of Fame on October 12, 2019. Both Bill and Anne, at various times, served as president both of the Mineralogical Society of Cleveland and of the Micromineral Society of the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, and Anne was inducted into the mi The rare barium lithium beryllium phosphate Wilancookite was named in their honor in 2015.