Fluorite on Quartz

Item Description

A rare Indian fluorite from the Charlie Key collection! I was shocked to see purple fluorite from India. Never seen it, in 20 years-plus of looking at Indian specimens. Recently over the last 4 years, we have seen for the first time (at least so I believed and everybody else I know), rounded botryoidal fluorite from India: red and yellow hemispheres from Mahodari in Nasik. Somehow, Charlie had bought and stashed a whole previous pocket of fluorites, and a novel color for India no less, and nobody knew. I BUY A LOT of Indian minerals and believe me, I would have bought ANY purple fluorite from India if I had seen ONE SINGLE specimen out of the tens of thousands of pieces I have been offered over the years. It simply wasn't to be had. I asked Charlie how the hell...and he just chuckled and said he "got good things from time to time and put them away." Charlie had apparently bought this small pocket in the late 1980s, and it was all he had seen, as well. This is the largest specimen of the small group we found in his collection - nestled in with a large and extensive Indian Collection Suite. This piece is pristine, and it positively glows when backlit with the light shining through both the translucent fluorite and the thin quartz plate on which it rests. This hemisphere measures 5 cm across. NOT a pale lavender, but a nice rich shade of purple! Rare and unusual, I would say.