Rhodochrosite

Item Description

A large plate of Sweet Home Mine, Colorado, Rhodochrosite of this size and color is normally the kind of thing you see at six figure prices on some shelves at Tucson these days...if at all. This large, museum sized display plate features crystals to 4 cm largest; and the sharpest middle crystal is 2 cm across. The video says it all...this is huge, red, and more red! The color is, in person, a beautiful ripe strawberry color that is desirable, not pale or washed out. Small quartz crystals poke out from amidst the thick blanket of sharp red rhombohedra, leading us to guess that this might be from nearby the Hedgehog Pocket find of the late 1990s; and certainly in that zone and mined in that time period of 1995-1998 or so. It is not quite pristine, as you would expect of something this size - but it is close. There is a small amount of edge wear on the bigger crystal, and on the periphery. All of that can also be improved in the lab, of course. It looks to have been sold without any lab processing at all, which is inline with many collector's desires in the mid 1990s when lab cleaning and minor restorations was still something new and uncertain, so people in many cases wanted something au naturale, and avoided the startup labs entirely. This is a highly valuable, colorful, and even investable specimen of the kind not often seen at auction. Valued $40,000-plus.