Quartz (Herkimer-Style Quartz)

Item Description

A beautiful and fine quality small cabinet sized specimen of the famous "Herkimer Diamonds" from upstate New York. This dramatic and showy piece hosts many very gemmy, and nearly colorless, doubly-terminated crystals of Quartz with remarkably well-formed, lustrous sharp faces, and no matrix. Most of these specimens are repaired, which is the case with this piece, but it's more than forgivable for the material. A really attractive and special example of these world-famous Quartz specimens. The piece is largely crystallized all over, with only a few small indentations where other Quartz crystals grew, so it's close to being complete all around. Minor black Bitumen inclusions can be seen inside some of the crystals for a nice touch. I actually sold this one to Jack years ago when it was valued at $1950 (with a $2400 price tag from Keith Williams), but today it's in the $6,000-$7,000 range.
From the collection of Jack Halpern No. 3002. Jack was born May 18, 1920 in Brooklyn, New York, but has been a long-time resident of San Francisco. He assembled one of the great mineral collections in the world encompassing over 3,200 specimens with a specific emphasis on color, quality, and style/aesthetics, which is evident in every piece. He admired specimens of all sizes from thumbnails to large cabinets and the vast majority of them rank from fine to world-class in their quality.
Above all else, Jack is considered to be the greatest gentleman in the modern era of mineral collecting. He is beloved by all those who have met him, and he truly is one of the most iconic figures in the mineral world. We recently acquired Jack's 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 pieces for their collections. We are honored to have the opportunity to offer Jack's treasures to everyone on a regular basis in the auctions.
We encourage you to read our blog post at https://www.irocks.com/the-jack-halpern-collection or his profile on the Mineralogical Record website https://mineralogicalrecord.com/biographies_labels/halpernjack/ for more information