Painite intergrown with Ruby (significant size!)

Item Description

Painite is a rare calcium-zirconium-aluminum borate from the "Burma Stone Track" and Kyauk-Pyat-That is the type locality for the species. This brown prismatic crystal has a hexagonal outline with a rough termination at end and unterminated at the other with a small, hollowed out area. The faces and one one termination are rough looking largely due to an encrustation of tiny Ruby crystals - these are very apparent under long wave UV as the their red fluorescence just pops! The mineral was discovered in Burma in the early 1950's and named after its discoverer, British gemologist Arthur Charles Davy Pain. Between 1956 and 1979 only three crystals of this hexagonal mineral were known to exist (and they still populate online lists of "world's most expensive gem") until the mid-2000s when quite a few were found and recovered. Many of these crystals were retrieved from weathered contact zones in the host limestone and were just found loose and fully formed as you see here. These are very rare and after the one single big find about 15 years ago, they have not been found in any quantity since. Valued $1500-2500. They are simply the world's best and now the deposit they were found in is literally gone, stripped and mined.