Fluorite "Alien Eye" (2007 Find)

Item Description

Alien Eye fluorites are, quite simply, the Holy Grail of fluorite collecting to a lot of people. Few came out in 2007, and then they spread far and wide, and quickly. They only come back on the market as old collections recycle, now. We have handled several of the best over the years, including a few of the big ones that first came to Dallas (the largest now resides in the Perot Musuem here in Dallas). However, Erika Pohl had a huge interest in African minerals and her scouts were everywhere. She had a friend with a direct source in Namibia apparently buying these for her as soon as they showed up, and was able to purchase a selected size suite of specimens before they hit the public market. She had a single prominent shelf displaying a number of examples from the pocket, anchored by this huge single crystal: the finest loose single cabinet sized crystal (just under 4 inch) we have seen since the original find. Stay tuned for a small cabinet single, a miniature, and a few clusters in further auctions of the vast Pohl African suite over the next few years. We start with the biggest single crystal that we will obtain in the Pohl collection (over 90,000 specimens!). This massive fist-sized crystal is nearly complete all around the display face as you can see from the video, with minor contacting. It is translucent, exceptionally so given the size. Most crystals larger than 3 inches were somehwat darker and need stronger lighting. As the crystal is so thick, and yet clear, it gains a robust saturation of color and so is a deeper green than crystals of half the size and mass - colorful, but definitely not too dark. It shows easily with minimal backlighting, even in hallway lighting or held against overhead fluorescents. It particularly glows in sunlight. This crystal has no repairs nor restorations. While it is hard to value such specimens given their rarity, and particularly one of this size, normal single crystals of smaller size routinely sell in the five figures. This is the largest example we will have for auction over the next few years as we systematically bring to market over 10000 specimens from the world class African suite of the Pohl collection. There will not be another of this magnitude.