Stellerite

Item Description

These superb quality Stellerites came out for a few short-lived years in the 1990s and were never seen again. They exhibit, simply put, some of the finest color seen in this zeolite species. Typically Stellerite is white/colorless, but the Sarbai specimen have a definitive orange hue, which can range more towards yellow, and dark enough that you would almost call it golden-brown. This piece is a great example of this now hard to find material featuring a few rather lustrous, radial aggregates of light apricot colored Stellerite measuring up to 2.1 cm across, associated with smaller individual prisms of pale golden colored Stellerite on matrix. Beautiful configuration with good isolated between each "ball" of Stellerite. No major damage, though there is one area of incomplete growth where one of the aggregates grew up against the pocket wall. A lovely piece of these fairly scarce Stellerites from one of the best-known localities in Kazakhstan.
From the collection of Jack Halpern No. 2763. 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