Emerald (rare North Carolina) Kay Robertson Coll.

Item Description

Any Crabtree Mine emerald specimens are RARE, compared to those from the much more famous mines at Hiddenite, Alexander County. This rare and cute two-sided matrix pegmatite miniature features tightly intergrown gemmy and lustrous, textbook hexagonal crystals on both sides of the lustrous biotite matrix. All of the crystals have classic, rich emerald green color. The dramatic frontal cluster is highlighted by the striking and beautiful isolated 8 mm terminated gem crystal on the left side. The terminated intergrown prisms on the right reach 9 mm. Drusy quartz crowns most of the emeralds on the front and there is also a patch of lustrous drusy quartz at the base of the front. The small gemmy emeralds on the back are very tightly intergrown. That's blue tack at the base of the piece. The pegmatite mine was intermittently active from 1894, with an active commericial mining effort from 1984 to 1994, when this piece was acquired. Ex Kay Robertson Collection # 12954 and acquired in the early 1990s. Kay was a prominent California collector, who specialized in European classics (see the article in the March-April, 2007 Mineralogical Record and the 50+ page article in the German Magazine "Mineralien Welt" November-December 2017). She recently passed away in 2020.