Scheelite (unique etched specimen) (fluorescent) (ex Dr. Stephen Smale Collection)

Item Description

This locality is well known for its amazing crystals of minerals like Aquamarine and Cassiterite, but the Scheelites from Pingwu are the finest examples of the species extant! The best of these specimens are the largest Scheelites with the best fiery orange / red color ever seen for the species. This small cabinet sized specimen is an interesting and unique display piece as it's a solid crystallized specimen of Scheelite, free of matrix and nearly crystallized all the way around. The piece has notable etching (hydrothermal?) on all sides, which is really unusual in my experience with this material. It's almost a complete "floater" as it actually not broken on the back / bottom / reverse side, but after it formed, the weight of the piece caused it detached from the pocket wall, and actually re-crystallized it situ while it finished forming. If you look closely, you can see there are hundreds of little crystal faces on the underside of the specimen. The color is a rich orange hue, which really glows up when you backlight the specimen. The pseudo-octahedral (tetragonal) form can be seen on the edges, and the top of the piece shows sharp and lustrous faces, and even a bit of good gem clarity. Overall it's in superb shape, but I can see a few small nicks which keep it from being 100% perfect. With that said, it's still a very impressive and fine quality example of these world-class Scheelites from China. Like most Scheelites, this piece shows a gorgeous blue fluorescence under ultra violet lighting. Valued at $2,500 in the inventory. Ex Dr. Stephen Smale Collection. Along with amassing one of the finest private mineral collections in the world, Steve is a renowned mathematician. His accomplishments include being awarded the Fields Medal in 1966 along with being the awarded the Wolf Prize in mathematics in 2007. You can read Steve's bio on the Mineralogical Record website ( https://mineralogicalrecord.com/biographies_labels/smalestephen/ ) or on Wikipedia.