Siderite with Fluorapatite on Quartz

Item Description

Panasqueira, is one of the premier localities in Europe, famous for its beautiful Fluorapatites, with associated minerals like Quartz and Siderite, but this piece features Siderite prominently in the form of a big, stout, well-formed, blocky trigonal crystal of a gentle tan hue measuring 3.7 cm, aesthetically flaring off of the upper termination of a thick, lustrous, gemmy, colorless hexagonal prism of Quartz. The added bonus on this specimen is a partial coverage of very pale green (nearly colorless in some lighting), lustrous, translucent tabular crystals of Fluorapatite measuring up to 1.0 cm. I would like to point out that although the Siderite is the focal point of the piece, the Quartz crystal is notably large and fine quality for the locality, as you rarely seen individual crystals of this caliber from Panasqueira, it just has the luxury of hosting Siderite and Apatite. Additionally, the Siderite crystal has a few "grooves" on the sides, which I believe to be slight skeletal or "hoppered" growth lines, but it could be a tiny bit of selective etching. The piece is dramatic and displays wonderfully as you can see. No major damage, only a few tiny imperfections that I can see. It's certainly one of the most eye-catching pieces that we've had from Panasqueira where Siderite is the featured species. If I had this one on the shelf at a show, I would price it around $2,000 retail.