Pezzottaite (very rare)

Item Description

When it comes to newly discovered / described mineral species in the last 20+ years, most of them are often tiny and not terribly colorful. It's quite rare that a brand new species will be discovered with not only eye-visible crystals, but also beautifully colorful crystals. This is exactly the case with Pezzottaite, as it is found in not only eye-visible crystals (some measure a few cm), but it has a beautiful strong pink color. The species was first found in Madagascar, is a cesium rich member of Beryl group and was named after Dr. Federico Pezzotta of Milan, Italy and was approved by the IMA in September 2003. This material is almost non-existent on the market today, and from what I've been told, there may never be any more specimens from Sakavalana again. The shortage of Pezzottaite specimens on the market has immediately caused these crystals to go up in value. This attractive little crystal is from the type locality and dates back to the very first material found. It shows the classic orange-pink color with good hexagonal crystal form and a bit of translucency. It's in good condition on the termination, but it's a bit etched along the prism faces. An attractive little specimen of a species that is virtually impossible to obtain today. We were fortunate to acquire this piece from an old small stash of crystals in a dealer's inventory with the original name Béryl Framboise ("raspberry" beryl) when they first hit the market (before they were named Pezzottaite).