Fresnoite (rare classic material)

Item Description

A rarely seen specimen of Fresnoite from the Junnila Mine in San Benito County, California. I should mention that the entry for this locality on mindat.org states, "This is NOT the original Junnila Mine, that is now the Yellow Cat Mine, several miles N of this locality". This piece is a nice thumbnail featuring little, sharp, lustrous, pale yellow colored crystals of the rare barium titanium silicate, Fresnoite measuring to about 2 mm, sitting on massive white Analcime and host rock matrix. Some of the finest crystals of Fresnoite ever found have come from this locality, and this piece is a nice reference sized example of this elusive material. The piece was mined by Steve Parry in 1998.
Ex George Loud Collection No. 55.4.2.1 CA.1; 6420 George (born August 16, 1942) is a well-known mineral collector from Washington, DC and South Carolina respectively, and was a patent lawyer by trade for over 50 years. He assembled one of the great mineral collections in the U.S., comprising worldwide specimens, and in later years he sold the worldwide specimens to focus on minerals of the United States, specifically locality suites with an emphasis on amazing representation of species while still maintaining fine quality. The specimens remarkably range from micros to all the way up to large cabinets in size. We recently acquired most of his impressive 9000+ piece collection, and the VAST majority of these pieces will be offered here in the auctions, as we feel that everyone deserves and equal opportunity at acquiring these important, well-documented and fine quality specimens for their collections.
See: https://mineralogicalrecord.com/biographies_labels/george-loud for more information