Gahnite (rare material) (found 1906) (ex Kay Robertson Collection)

Item Description

Gahnite is a member of the Spinel Group, but specimens are not common from the United States. Most collectors are probably familiar with the specimens from Franklin, New Jersey or assorted New England localities. Gahnite from North Carolina is highly sought after, and I've only had a handful of them on over the years. This small miniature specimen features a 7.5 mm, sharp, well-formed, lustrous, attractive green color octahedral crystal of Gahnite on Smoky Quartz. Unlike the few I've seen from North Carolina, this crystal is green without backlighting (some can be very dark - nearly black - and need strong light to see the green color). You just don't see these specimens on the market, and to have a euhedral crystal on matrix with such nice color is exceptionally rare. If you collect US minerals, North Carolina minerals or if you've ever wanted a nice NC Gahnite, don't miss out on this one. Ex Kay Robertson Collection (#4807) with an old hand-written tag that states it was collected in 1906. The locality is taken directly from the label, and I don't know if it even exists today, but I copied it exactly in the hope that somebody out there might recognize it and confirm the origin of the piece. Kay Robertson is a prominent California collector, who specialized in European classics (see the article in the March-April, 2007 Mineralogical Record and the 50+ page article in the German Magazine "Mineralien Welt" November-December 2017).