Rutile on Muscovite

Item Description

An attractive, classic specimen of these well-known Rutiles from Boiling Springs, North Carolina. The piece hosts beautiful, lustrous, thin prismatic "needle" crystals of dark burnt red Rutile measuring up to 1.5 cm long sitting atop silvery-beige colored bladed groups of Muscovite. With some backlighting, you can actually see a GREEN color coming through the sides of the Muscovite crystals, perhaps an indication of minor chromium content(?). No damage to the Rutiles, but the some of the Muscovite groups are rough where the piece was separated from the pocket. Still a cool specimen for any fan of these iconic Rutiles.
From the collection of Jack Halpern No. 850. Jack was born May 18, 1920 in Brooklyn, New York, but has been a long-time resident of San Francisco. He assembled one of the great mineral collections in the world encompassing over 3,200 specimens with a specific emphasis on color, quality, and style/aesthetics, which is evident in every piece. He admired specimens of all sizes from thumbnails to large cabinets and the vast majority of them rank from fine to world-class in their quality.
Above all else, Jack is considered to be the greatest gentleman in the modern era of mineral collecting. He is beloved by all those who have met him, and he truly is one of the most iconic figures in the mineral world. We recently acquired Jack's 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 pieces for their collections. We are honored to have the opportunity to offer Jack's treasures to everyone on a regular basis in the auctions.
We encourage you to read our blog post at https://www.irocks.com/the-jack-halpern-collection or his profile on the Mineralogical Record website https://mineralogicalrecord.com/biographies_labels/halpernjack/ for more information