Fluorite and Hubnerite on doubly-terminated Quartz (mined 1978 by Dave Bergman)

Item Description

For those who don't know, Richard Kosnar and his mine foreman and father-in-law Dave Bergman mined the Sweet Home for a few years during the late 1970's and managed to collect some excellent Rhodochrosite specimens. This piece is from one of the last pockets that they opened before they were done at the mine, and while it features no Rhodochrosite, it's a superb little association specimen. This piece features a WATER CLEAR, sharp, pale lilac colored dodecahedron of Fluorite measuring 4 mm across which is associated with a 6 mm gemmy, fiery-red color tabular crystal of Hubnerite sitting on a doubly-terminated Quartz crystal with a few accessory Quartz crystals and sulfides. The piece almost looks like a "floater", but it's not completely crystallized all the way around, so it's a near "floater". This association is incredibly rare in my experience from the Sweet Home Mine, and only a few of these exist. This piece along with the only other examples of this association were collected by Dave Bergman, a Colorado miner (the foreman and primary person in charge of recovering specimens at the famous Sweet Home Mine near Alma, Colorado during the late 1970s) and the maternal grandfather of Brian Kosnar. See Dave's photo mining at the Sweet Home on page 58 of Peter Bancroft's book "Gem and Crystal Treasures".