Muscovite (large crystal) on Albite

Item Description

Mt. Antero is a famous old locality along the Collegiate Range in central Colorado, synonymous with some of the best Aquamarine crystals from any locality in North America. It's a typical granite pegmatite locality, where accessory minerals like mica and feldspar are present, but they are RARELY seen in good display specimens. This piece is a remarkable example of Muscovite featuring a large foliated, silvery colored hexagonal crystal group, which plays host to smaller blades of Muscovite on the surface, sitting on a bit of white Albite matrix. The Muscovite is largely complete, with only a bit of roughness, but it's the largest individual Muscovite that we've ever seen from the locality, and the piece displays nicely as you can see. It's not just an esoteric locality specimen, it's a fine example of a mineral that is not often seen in excellent display pieces from one of the most documented localities in the state. The piece was collected by Jeff Self in 2006.
Ex George Loud Collection No. 458 CO.1; 10,063. 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