Fluorite with Calcite ex Zinn & Halpern

Item Description

From a famous, infamous even, March 1993 pocket called simply "the blue pocket" at this old Illinois fluorite mine, this is a classic example of that particular find. The best specimens are gemmy, completely translucent as you see here, and have minor acents of calcite crystals growing upon the faces. To this day, they are IMMEDIATELY recognizable as special specimens from this incredible locality, unique among hundreds of other pockets ever found here. Most major collectors active in the 1990s bought one of these from Ross Lillie at the time. Like most such specimens, the front display face is in good condition overall, while the sides have some contacting where removed from a solid pocket wall. To note, carefully, the leftmost corner has a small chip, that we have chosen not to have restored with epoxy, and so the piece is natural and unrepaired or restored. Although, that is trivial to do and if the owner desired, could easily be hidden to visibility (although you'd label it with a restoration, so why bother with something so small?). On this specimen, the calcites are all complete and terminated except only the lone crystal atop (complete on front display face, but cleaved behind - and it can be removed anyways with acid, if desired, but makes a nice accent and has been therefore left alone). It looks like this sold to Marty Zinn, and then Jack Halpern acquirred it later when the Zinn collection was dispaersed after a sale in around 2003 (comes with both labels from both well-respected collectors). Valued $2500-3000