Rhodochrosite on Manganite

Item Description

This is your classic wheat-sheaves style rhodo on matrix of manganite, a jewel of a specimen from the famous finds here in the early 1980s. This particular style is absolutely unique to this locality and this time period, and few are on the market. I cannot say how they form, but they are all formed of a gemmy crystal with multiple tiny terminations, and a strange white band inside the middle. These crystals are about 1 cm. They are GEMMY and sparkling, and contrast dramatically to the manganite matrix below. This piece has over half a dozen such crystals, one with a slight contact but overall in really good shape. It is a full miniature, not too small and not too big and unbalanced...most of this style are, frankly, smaller specimens. All such pieces have long been in collections, and only come back to market rarely today. When they do, they routinely fetch prices of $3000-7500 range. You can see several similar pieces on a few of the other major websites that have sold in this range. In my opinion, this one should be worth around that $5k center range, in normal times. It is a fine piece, from the early 1980s, from the Jaime Bird collection.