Chondrodite (fine crystals)

Item Description

This piece dates back to the mid 2000s, when some really fine quality and attractive red color Chondrodites started coming out of Afghanistan (near the famous Lapis mines). This wonderful toenail sized piece features a handful of notably sharp, well-formed, lustrous, red color monoclinic crystals of Chondrodite measuring up to 1.1 cm sitting atop greenish mica matrix. The crystals show good internal gemminess when backlit. No major damage to be found. A very good example of these now hard to find pieces. It should be noted that you might see these pieces labeled as Clinohumite, but the information on these pieces was a bit sketchy when they first came out, so the mistake is understandable, though everything that has been analyzed so far is Chondrodite. From the collection of Kurt Hefendehl (#93 AP), a well-known German collector all over Europe with worldwide contacts to dealers and collectors. He started collecting seriously at the age of 14 and his great and varied worldwide collection reached over 6000 pieces. He was very active mineralogically until shortly before his passing in 2020 at the age of 82. Considering his collection had a large number of pieces, it still had an unusually high standard of quality from most worldwide localities. He particularly specialized in all classics as well as minerals of the Black Forest, where he spent much time collecting. His Black Forest and German subcollections went to his good friend Wolfgang Wendel. We at The Arkenstone have the privilege of offering the remainder of this great worldwide collection over the next two to three years through our various platforms.