Spinel on Calcite (rare locality specimen)

Item Description

A rarely seen specimen of Spinel labeled as coming from "Malipo, Wenshan", though this may not be correct. The piece may have actually come from Luc Yen, Vietnam, and was snuck over the border and sold at a local market under a different locality to hide its origin. With that said, the matrix doesn't quite look like most pieces I've seen from Vietnam, but there is a tiny bit of associated burnt orange Chondrodite, which is an indicator that it might have been found at Luc Yen. It's still a very showy and attractive full cabinet sized display piece featuring several sharp, lustrous, well-formed octahedral crystals measuring up to 3.0 cm, with a soft pinkish-purple hue, sitting on silvery-white translucent Calcite matrix. Good quality, very little damage and it displays wonderfully as you can see. It's not common to find such defined and well-formed Spinel crystals on matrix this size, regardless of the locality. Valued $2,000.
From the collection of Kurt Hefendehl (#294 C), a well-known German collector all over Europe with worldwide contacts to dealers and collectors. He started collecting seriously at the age of 14 and his great and varied worldwide collection reached over 6000 pieces. He was very active mineralogically until shortly before his passing in 2020 at the age of 82. Considering his collection had a large number of pieces, it still had an unusually high standard of quality from most worldwide localities. He particularly specialized in all classics as well as minerals of the Black Forest, where he spent much time collecting. His Black Forest and German subcollections went to his good friend Wolfgang Wendel. We at The Arkenstone have the privilege of offering the remainder of this great worldwide collection over the next two to three years through our various platforms.