Phantom Quartz & Gold Pendant trio (Ex. Rock Currier Coll.)

Item Description

This specimen is part of the 2021 Dallas Mineral Collecting Symposium benefit auction, with proceeds benefiting Mineralogical Record, Rocks & Minerals, Tucson Gem and Mineral Society, and mindat.org. Thanks to all of our participants!

Billing for this auction will occur on Monday, August 23, for payment using PayPal or a credit card. Shipping will be billed at cost.

Designed by Rock H. Currier for his personal collection :  This unusual piece of jewelry is a memento from Rock's quartz mining adventure in Brazil with Ed Swoboda and Osario Neto (circa 1980s) when thousands of quartz points were mined.  The included quartz had to be polished to show off the phenomenal "phantoms."  Rock would diligently go through all of the polished points (yes: all of them), carefully select what he thought were the best, and put them in his personal collection.  He selected two polished phantom points and a cut stone to incorporate into this unusual custom designed pendant.  That was Rock! He had a particularly fun time turning jokes and puns into objects of art, and this probably made him chuckle - which would explain the cute amethyst frog carving perched upon the quartz which is otherwise completely unexplainable in the normal world of jewelry. The piece consists of several small quartz crystals wrapped in cages on the sides, with the three central crystals of a 6 cm quartz (Seminario Farm, Joaquim Felicio, Minas Gerais, Brazil) and 4.5 cm flanking amethysts (from Veracruz, Mexico). The upper ends are polished, presumably to avoid hurting the owner with sharp ends. The bottom tips are actually pristine, perfect terminations of very sharp crystals. The chain is cloth and then what seems to be a lightweight gold content chain (according to his records). Donated to the Symposium Auction by the Currier Collection/Currier Estate. Note that the size given is the "central mass" of this piece.