Stilbite / Stellerite (RARE locality specimen!) (ex Kay Robertson Collection)

Item Description

How often does one have the opportunity to purchase a specimen from North Korea? Obviously with the political tension these days, it would be impossible, but specimens were available many years ago, and Kay was able to her her hands on one of them. This specimen may not win any prizes for the best of species, but the locality is what matters here. This piece features sharp, lustrous, white to cream colored crystals of either Stilbite or Stellerite (the label actually refers to the piece as Stilbite var. Stellerite, but this is not correct). If I had to guess, it LOOKS more like Stellerite to me, as I think the crystals appear more orthorhombic than monoclinic, but that's only my opinion. For reference, I'm copying the locality info from the label, but I did find an article from the American Mineralogist in 1985 that refers to the mine as "Eyi Ju" ( http://www.minsocam.org/ammin/AM70/AM70_814.pdf ). A really cool old time specimen of this now impossible to obtain material. Ex Kay Robertson Collection (#6384). The beauty of a collection like this one is that it contains unique and rare specimens, including pieces from North Korea! Kay is a prominent California collector, who specialized in European classics (see the article in the March-April, 2007 Mineralogical Record and the 50+ page article in the German Magazine "Mineralien Velt" November-December 2017).