Fluorite (GEM crystals) on Quartz on Fluorite

Item Description

A gorgeous Fluorite specimen from the La Barre Mine in France. If you look up this locality on mindat.org, you'll see that it is referred to as an ancient Fluorite mine, which operated, "from 1918 until 1948, produced 80 000 tons of ore". This is piece features a rich coverage of many sharp, very lustrous, GEM quality, well-formed, textbook cubes with gorgeous soft blue color sitting on a thin layer sparkling white Quartz matrix, on top of an earlier generation of rich green massive Fluorite underneath. The largest Fluorite crystal measures 7 mm on edge. Most of the crystals are in superb condition, but there are some tiny imperfections in spots. The crystals show a bit of a color change, where they are a lighter purplish-blue color in halogen lighting, and more of a blue in sunlight.
From the collection of the long time, beloved, well-known French field collector, Paul Zerfass (Collection #27). Zerfass built this worldwide collection over nearly 50 years, many of which were personally collected. A biography featuring specimens from his collection (along with his face on the cover) is in the May - June 2017 issue of French mineral magazine, Le Règne Minéral. We have a .pdf copy of the article for anybody interested in reading it (though it's mostly in French). Just drop us a line and know that you'd like to have a copy.