Quartz var: Smoky (''Gwindel'')

Item Description

These specimens appeared on the western market for a brief time in the early 1990s, and to the best of my knowledge, were never found again. You won't see many of them available these days, as they have found their way into private collections, and museums, so they're typically only offered when an old collection makes it way to market. This piece is a very good example of these classic "Alpine-type" specimens from the Polar Urals of Western Siberia featuring a highly lustrous, VERY GEMMY, medium smoky colored "Gwindel" sitting atop a matrix comprising additional prismatic single crystals of Smoky Quartz. For those who aren't familiar, "Gwindel" is term given to a specific morphology of Quartz crystals, where they are intergrown parallel to the prisms in an almost "stacked" formation, but they exhibit a slight "twist", which is where the term comes from, as "Gwindel" is derived from the world "gewunden", which means twisted in German. Additionally, there almost appears to be a "Faden" line running down the center of the "Gwindel" ("Faden" = string or thread in German), which would be notably rare for the material, but perhaps this is just an optical illusion, and not a true "Faden". With that said, this piece is a very good example of these seldom-seen specimens for the fact that it's notably more lustrous and gemmy than most I've seen from Puiva. The color is also a pleasing, slightly "cognac" hue, which is better than more of the dusty grey examples I've seen from this locality. There are a few nicks on the piece, so it's not completely pristine, but it's really showy and overall fine quality, so if you collect worldwide Quartz specimens or minerals from Russia, don't miss out on this one. From the collection of Kurt Hefendehl (#240 RU), a well-known German collector all over Europe with worldwide contacts to dealers and collectors. He started collecting seriously at the age of 14 and his great and varied worldwide collection reached over 6000 pieces. He was very active mineralogically until shortly before his passing in 2020 at the age of 82. Considering his collection had a large number of pieces, it still had an unusually high standard of quality from most worldwide localities. He particularly specialized in all classics as well as minerals of the Black Forest, where he spent much time collecting. His Black Forest and German subcollections went to his good friend Wolfgang Wendel. We at The Arkenstone have the privilege of offering the remainder of this great worldwide collection over the next two to three years through our various platforms.