Epidote (doubly-terminated / multi-terminated ''Faden'' group) (ex Rich Kosnar Collection)

Item Description

This piece comes to us from he collection of the well-known collector and mineral dealer Richard A. Kosnar (1946-20074). Rich was a serious collector of European Alpine and "Alpine-Type" minerals from around the world. He was especially fond of Epidote from the Austrian Alpine clefts and the nearly identical deposits in Pakistan. Starting in the early 90s, we saw many good quality specimens of this material on the market, but it has become increasingly rare to find excellent specimens such as this from Tormiq. The Pakistani specimens are seemingly identical to their classic European Alpine counterparts, and an argument can be made that in certain instances, they the European specimens have been surpassed with regard to overall quality and gemminess. This gorgeous small cabinet a very showy, doubly-terminated / multi-terminated, sharp, highly lustrous "Faden" crystal group featuring excellent, sharp, lustrous "sword"-shaped crystals, free of matrix. "Faden" is the German word for "string" and with strong backlighting, you can see how the piece grew along the fibrous "strings" that runs across the specimen. The piece is in very good shape, but there are a few minor imperfections here and there. It looks fantastic from either side. The pleochroism is actually pretty good on this one despite the thicker nature of the crystals as you can see it shows both green and golden colors when rotated in the light. You just don't see pieces like this on the market now, and if you consider that most Epidote crystals around the world are "black" and opaque, this piece is in the higher echelon in terms of quality for the species. Valued at $1,000 in the inventory.