Quartz with Siderite and Fluorapatite

Item Description

Panasqueira is one of the premier European localities, which has produced beautiful and distinctive Fluorapatite crystals, sometimes associated with minerals like Quartz and Siderite. This piece is mainly a Quartz specimen, and it features big, stout, well-formed, blocky trigonal crystals of tan colored Siderite measuring up to 2.1 cm, aesthetically flaring off of the side. The added bonus on this specimen is that there are several, soft purple colored, lustrous, translucent, fairly thick crystals of Fluorapatite measuring up to 1.8 cm. I would like to point out that although the Siderite and Fluorapatite are highlights on the specimens, the focal point of the piece is that the Quartz crystals are notably large and fine quality for the locality, as you rarely seen individual crystals of this caliber from Panasqueira, it just has the luxury of hosting Siderite and Apatite. The piece is dramatic and displays wonderfully as you can see (though there is a base glued to the bottom of the specimen). There are some small imperfections, so the piece isn't perfect, but it's still in very good condition. It's certainly one of the most eye-catching pieces that we've had from Panasqueira where Siderite is the featured species. If I had this one on the shelf at a show, I would price it around $3,500 retail. From the collection of Kurt Hefendehl (#27 Po), 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 for the coming months/years through our various platforms.