Fluorite (GEM ''ice'' crystals) on Arsenopyrite (ex Dr. Stephen Smale Collection)

Item Description

The Huanggang Deposit is one of the great Chinese specimen producers in recent years, yielding a wide variety of fine quality, showy and attractive mineral specimens. This piece is a fantastic small cabinet sized featuring a pair of WATER CLEAR, sharp, lustrous, colorless Fluorite crystals measuring up to 4.0 cm sitting atop crystallized sharp, lustrous, silvery metallic Arsenopyrite crystals, which makes for a wonderful contrast against the Fluorite. A few small thin prismatic Quartz crystals can be seen on the piece, which have a greenish coloring from Hedenbergite inclusions, and there are also some small pearly white rhombic crystal groups of Dolomite for a nice touch. The habit of these Fluorite crystal is a pleasing combination of octahedral, dodecahedral and cubic faces and they are true "ice" crystals as they are complete devoid of color, which means they are chemically pure, and have SUPREME TRANSPARENCY. No major damage anywhere, and truly impressive from the standpoint of composition, size, quality and aesthetics. We had this one priced at $2,500 in the inventory. Ex Dr. Stephen Smale Collection. Along with amassing one of the finest private mineral collections in the world, Steve is a renowned mathematician. His accomplishments include being awarded the Fields Medal in 1966 along with being the awarded the Wolf Prize in mathematics in 2007. You can read Steve's bio on the Mineralogical Record website ( https://mineralogicalrecord.com/biographies_labels/smalestephen/ ) or on Wikipedia.