Pollucite

Item Description

Pollucite is a rare species in large crystals, and especially in such size and clarity as this one. It is a mineral rich in cesium, and is in fact the cesium analogue of analcime (i only just learned this, from MINDAT!). Interestingly as an aside, Mindat further states that this was once named Polluxite: Named after Pollux, a figure from Greek mythology, brother of Castor, for its common association with "castorite" (petalite). The name was later changed to the current Pollucite. This is a rather large, SHARP, translucent pollucite crystal that presents as a broad extended crystal, rather unsual. It is complete on the front and on all edges, contacted only on the back face where it was attached to matrix and pulled off. Oddly, in person, it semes almost shieldlike, or triangular, in shape. It is pristine on the display face, except for a small bit of damage (impression) on one of the 3 "points". This is a fairly major crystallized example of the species, and a customer of mine once paid $3400 for this about the time they first started coming out of Afghanistan. Today, such crystals remain uncommon in this size despite another decade of mining here, and pockets are hit only very rarely. 400 grams