Grossular Garnet with Epidote (award winning specimen) (ex Bill Larson Collection)

Item Description

This is the first and only Garnet specimen that we've ever had to offer from the Cooper Canyon area. The piece was field collected by Erik Rose and Al Rose at the Lucky Strike Prospect, and actually won 1st place in competition from the San Diego Mineral and Gem Society for "Best Mineral Self-Collected by an Amateur". It's a classic calcic skarn association specimen featuring beautiful, sharp, lustrous, rich orange-red crystals of Grossular Garnet with a pleasing combination of dodecahedral and trapezohedral faces which play host to a wonderful olive-green colored prismatic crystal of Epidote aesthetically flaring out of the center of the specimen. The largest Garnet measures 8 mm across, and the Epidote measures 1.2 cm long. Unfortunately, the Epidote is contacted on the termination, but it's such a showy and aesthetic specimen, from an unlikely locality, that you can forgive the fact that it's not 100% pristine. I would have never guessed that a piece like this would have come from California, and if you collect Garnets, association specimens, oddball locality pieces or minerals from the Golden State, do not miss out on this one, as you may never see another like for a long time. It's almost impossible to put a fair market value on a piece like this, but I could easily see it selling to a serious collector for $1,000+ . From the collection of Bill Larson of Fallbrook, California. Bill is a well-known gem and mineral dealer as well as a miner and collector. Bill is synonymous with minerals of San Diego County, and owned and operated famous mines such as the Stewart Lithia, the Tourmaline Queen, the Pala Chief and the Himalaya, producing some of the most iconic mineral specimens to come out of the area during the 1970s-1980s. You can read his biography at https://mineralogicalrecord.com/biographies_labels/larsonwilliam-f/