Rhodonite (Hefendehl Coll.) - significant, 1990s find

Item Description

Rhodonite from the Chiurucu (San Martin) Mine is deservedly famous and the BEST specimens were highly desirable when they came out in the early 1990s (1991, if I recall). This is a superb piece from those finds with good color and sharp crystals, immediately obvious compared to later finds with smaller crystals or less color! It has sharp, lustrous, pink-red, bladed crystals to 2 cm in beautiful, stacked bundles from top to bottom on this aesthetic small cabinet piece. The impact of the intense color is noticeable from across a room on this almost flower-like, intensely colored specimen. It would be toward the top of the color scale for the material. Much of what you see on the market if you see it anymore, is more pink in color and less bright - this is from later finds. Also, the luster here is about as good as I have seen for the material as it has come from a trickle of pockets mined by hand since the major mining efforts here stopped. A small cabinet (or large miniature) specimen of this caliber would cost $4000-5000 easily if seen out at a show today. They never turn up anymore and this is, gram for gram, the finest specimen in this auction set of deaccessions from the Hefendehl collection.