Fluorite on Amethyst (RARE locality specimen)

Item Description

This is a remarkably rare association specimen from Iraí in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil featuring a few notably spherical groups of stark white FLUORITE sitting on a richly colored, gemmy, purple prismatic crystal of Amethyst. While neither of these minerals are considered rare, the combination of them together from this locality is exceedingly hard to find. I actually located a photo of this piece prior to it going into Kurt's collection (see https://www.mindat.org/photo-411056.html ). Not only is it rare to see these two minerals together from this locality, but it's also quite unusual to see spherical Fluorite, though very similar specimens have been observed from the Mahodari (Mohadari) Quarry in India, which geologically is quite similar to Iraí, as they are both basaltic in their origin. It should be noted that the Amethyst crystal is not complete, as the lower portion has some separation marks where it was attached to other Amethyst crystals, but you can forgive the incompleteness of the piece for the fact that you almost NEVER see specimens with Fluorite from this locality.
From the collection of Kurt Hefendehl (#73 AU), a well-known German collector all over Europe with worldwide contacts to dealers and collectors. He started collecting seriously at the age of 14 and his great and varied worldwide collection reached over 6000 pieces. He was very active mineralogically until shortly before his passing in 2020 at the age of 82. Considering his collection had a large number of pieces, it still had an unusually high standard of quality from most worldwide localities. He particularly specialized in all classics as well as minerals of the Black Forest, where he spent much time collecting. His Black Forest and German subcollections went to his good friend Wolfgang Wendel. We at The Arkenstone have the privilege of offering the remainder of this great worldwide collection over the next two to three years through our various platforms.