Fluorite with Dolomite on Quartz (ex Dr. Stephen Smale Collection)

Item Description

The prestigious Shangbao Mine in China is famous for its beautiful Fluorites, occurring in range of colors, and often found in showy display specimens with wonderful associations. They are some of the most distinctive, eye-catching and highest quality examples from anywhere in China. These wonderful Fluorites are a staple of any Fluorite collection or Chinese mineral collection. This small cabinet display specimen features a 3.6 cm, g beautiful, sharp, lustrous, GEMMY, very soft green colored crystal of Fluorite showing pronounced cubic and dodecahedral faces associated with eye-catching spherical groups of light beige colored, pearly Dolomite sitting on a matrix of prismatic, colorless Quartz crystals. There are actually a few Quartz crystals flaring OUT of the Fluorite, which is notably rare in my experience with this material. If you look closely, you can see the Fluorite has a gentle "phantom" inside. With the naked eye, the Fluorite looks damage free and so elegantly set atop the matrix. Overall, it's very difficult to obtain pieces of this quality with such excellent aesthetics and balance. A fine example from this famous mine. Valued at $4,000 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.co... ) or on Wikipedia.