Columbite-(Mn) (RARE locality specimen)

Item Description

The famed White Queen Mine in San Diego County, California has produced the finest crystals of Morganite from any locality in California, or the US for that matter, and they certainly hold their own against specimens from Brazil or Afghanistan. Most other species from this locality are seldom seen on the market, especially in cabinet sized display specimen like this one. This piece is the ONLY specimen of Columbite-(Mn) that we've had to offer in the auctions from this historic locale. It's a hefty and showy piece featuring a 9.0 cm group of lustrous, striated, dark reddish-black, layered Columbite-(Mn) with a bit of associated Muscovite sitting on Albite and Quartz matrix. The Columbite group has some contacted areas, so it's not pristine, but for the size (both of the crystal group and specimen in general), it's an impressive specimen that would make a great addition to any suite of San Diego County minerals or niobate minerals. The accompanying label states that the piece originally belonged to Bryant Harris. Please note that the back of the specimen has a saw mark. You're not likely to see another piece like this from the White Queen on the market, and it's exactly the kind of specimen you can only find in a deep and comprehensive collection like George's.
Ex George Loud Collection No. 8321 CA.1; 10,269 George (born August 16, 1942) is a well-known mineral collector from Washington, DC and South Carolina respectively, and was a patent lawyer by trade for over 50 years. He assembled one of the great mineral collections in the U.S., comprising worldwide specimens, and in later years he sold the worldwide specimens to focus on minerals of the United States, specifically locality suites with an emphasis on amazing representation of species while still maintaining fine quality. The specimens remarkably range from micros to all the way up to large cabinets in size. We recently acquired most of his impressive 9000+ piece collection, and the VAST majority of these pieces will be offered here in the auctions, as we feel that everyone deserves and equal opportunity at acquiring these important, well-documented and fine quality specimens for their collections.
See: https://mineralogicalrecord.com/biographies_labels/george-loud for more information