Fluorite with Quartz and sulfides (ex Richard A. Kosnar Collection)

Item Description

The Sweet Home Mine is best known for producing arguably the finest Rhodochrosite crystals in the world, but it also produced some attractive non-Rhodo association specimens. This cabinet display specimen features tiny purple cubes of Fluorite measuring up to about 3 mm sitting atop dozens of thin "needle" Quartz prisms which are associated with various sulfides (Sphalerite, Tetrahedrite and Pyrite, but possibly more) on host rock matrix. The Fluorites have more of a blue color in sunlight, like a lot of the Fluorites from this locality. A really cool old time specimen of this hard to find material from the Sweet Home. This piece was part of the collection of Richard A. Kosnar, the namesake for the species Kosnarite, who operated the Sweet Home Mine in the 1970s specifically to collect specimens. This particular piece was personally collected in 1978 by Dave Bergman (Rich Kosnar's father-in-law), who is a Colorado miner. Dave was the foreman and primary person in charge of recovering specimens at the Sweet Home Mine for Rich years ago. See Dave's photo mining at the Sweet Home on page 58 of Peter Bancroft's book "Gem and Crystal Treasures".