Rhodochrosite (ex Dave Bergman Collection)

Item Description

The Sweet Home Mine is world famous for its incredible specimens of Rhodochrosite Back in the late 1970s, Richard Kosnar and his father-in-law Dave Bergman mined the Sweet Home for a few years and collected some excellent specimens. Here we have a piece from Dave's collection features a predominant, sharp, lustrous, gemmy, pinkish-red rhombohedron of Rhodochrosite with a tiny bit of attached matrix. This is an unusual Rhodo from the Sweet Home as it's not a smooth textbook rhomb, but rather a "stepped" / more complex habit. It would make a great addition to any Colorado suite, a Rhodo collection or a suite of thumbnails. As mentioned, this piece was personally collected in 1978 and remained in the collection of Dave Bergman, a Colorado miner (the foreman and primary person in charge of recovering specimens at the famous Sweet Home Mine near Alma, Colorado during the late 1970s) and the maternal grandfather of Brian Kosnar. See Dave's photo mining at the Sweet Home on page 58 of Peter Bancroft's book "Gem and Crystal Treasures".