Fluorite (Mined: 1977)

Item Description

The Sweet Home Mine in Colorado is one of the world's most famous localities, best-known for its Rhodochrosite specimens, but it has produced some very nice Fluorites as well. While the mining that took place in the 1990s-2000s produced a good number of excellent pieces, it wasn't the first specimen mining operation at the locality. For those who don't know, Richard Kosnar and his father-in-law Dave Bergman mined the Sweet Home for a few years during the late 1970's and managed to collect some excellent specimens. This was the very first time the Sweet Home was mined specifically with the intent of recovering specimens. This specimen is a wonderful small cabinet, featuring many, gemmy, attractive purple color cubic crystals (with dodecahedral modifications on the edges) of Fluorite measuring up to 6 mm sitting on Quartz and sulfide matrix. There are some small spots of blue Fluorite that can be seen, but the crystals themselves are essentially purple. This is a very nice Fluorite from the Sweet Home and would make a great addition to any Colorado suite, a Fluorite collection or a suite of Sweet Home specimens.
This piece comes from the personal collection of Colorado mining legend, Dave Bergman, who collected it in 1977. Dave is now retired from mining, but he worked for decades in various mines underground in Colorado, as a miner, mechanic, engineer, shift boss and foreman. His biggest claim to fame is that he was the foreman and the primary person in charge of mining and specimen recovery at the Sweet Home Mine in Colorado in the 1970s alongside his son-in-law, Rich Kosnar. A full-page photograph of Dave can be seen mining underground at the Sweet Home in on page 58 of Peter Bancroft's book "Gem and Crystal Treasures".