Scheelite on Pyrite & Quartz (Hefendehl Coll.)

Item Description

An important locality specimen for scheelite, and beautiful as well, this features VERY RARE clusters of dipyramidal pseudo-octahedral Scheelite crystals together with Quartz crystals, scattered on the aesthetically intergrown pyrite crystals, from Russia's famous Berezovsk deposit. This was the first and oldest gold mining area in Russia. The striking, lustrous, translucent, rich reddish-orange to amber scheelites reach 1.0 cm. The impressive sharp, lustrous, dramatically well-striated, metallic pyrite cubes to modified cubes reach 5.0 cm (doubly terminated). Ghostly white, SW UV fluorescence, as you would expect. Ex Kurt Hefendehl Collection. Records show that he paid 1200 Euros for the piece. Not insignificant for the rarity. This exceptionally RARE and sculptural combination could date to the Imperial Russia era, pre-World War I, or from more recent mining efforts. We have never seen another such combination - it is a shocking rarity, when we realized what we were looking at. Kurt bought many Russian pieces early on in the 1980s and 1990s.