Rhodochrosite

Item Description

The Inakuraishi Mine is one of, if not the most famous locality for Rhodochrosite in Japan. The Oppu Mine is certainly in the same echelon in terms of well-known specimens, but good Rhodos from Inakuraishi are probably even less common on the market today. This locality according to the entry on mindat.org was the single largest manganese deposit in Japan, and produced a good number of these beautiful Rhodochrosites. This gorgeous small cabinet is filled with compressed light pink colored rhombs on the display side, forming semi-"rosette"-shaped groups, with individual crystals measuring to about 1.0 cm across, though there are larger cleaved crystals on the back that measure up to 1.7 cm. No matrix, the piece is pure Rhodochrosite, and it's incredibly showy and eye-catching. A really choice "hand-sized" display specimen of these classic and important Rhodos. Valued $6,000-$7,500.
Ex George Loud Collection No. 7999; 14.1.1.4 JA.7. George (born August 16, 1942) is a well-known mineral collector from Washington, DC and South Carolina respectively, and was a patent lawyer by trade for over 50 years. He assembled one of the great mineral collections in the U.S., comprising worldwide specimens, and in later years he sold the worldwide specimens to focus on minerals of the United States, specifically locality suites with an emphasis on amazing representation of species while still maintaining fine quality. The specimens remarkably range from micros to all the way up to large cabinets in size. We recently acquired most of his impressive 9000+ piece 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 specimens for their collections.
See: https://mineralogicalrecord.com/biographies_labels/george-loud for more information