Fluorite (ex Dave Bergman Collection)

Item Description

There are a lot of localities for Fluorite in Colorado, but some of the most iconic examples are those from the historic Sunnyside Mine in the San Juan Mountains in southwestern Colorado. This famous locality is best known for it superb pink Rhodochrosite specimens which are sometimes associated with green Fluorite. This piece is pure Fluorite and features a rarely seen cubic habit. Typically the Fluorites from the Sunnyside mine are octahedral in habit, and cubic specimens like this are much less common in my experience. The crystals are a light silvery green shade and show good internal translucency when backlit. The large central group of Fluorite crystals measures 3.7 cm on edge. An attractive specimen of this highly sought after material. This mine has been closed for nearly 40 years, and you just don't see Sunnyside specimens on the market anymore, so don't miss out on this one. Please note that this is not from the "American Tunnel Mine", which a generic term that people used for specimens that came out of the Sunnyside. No actually mining took place in the American Tunnel, it was simply a tunnel used to move ore out of the Sunnyside. From the collection of legendary Colorado miner, Dave Bergman. Dave is now retired, but mined all over Colorado and was most famously the former the foreman and primary person in charge of recovering specimens at the famous Sweet Home Mine near Alma, Colorado during the late 1970s. Dave personally collected this specimen in the summer of 1978. See Dave's photo mining at the Sweet Home on page 58 of Peter Bancroft's book "Gem and Crystal Treasures".