Tourmaline (Verdelite) with Smoky Quartz and Albite

Item Description

A gorgeous and highly eye-catching combo specimen featuring a 3.5 cm crystal of sharp, lustrous Tourmaline that might appear black on the surface, but with strong backlighting, it shows a deep green (Verdelite) hue, which is aesthetically sitting between a pair of richly colored, sharp, very well-formed, translucent crystals of Smoky Quartz measuring up to 6.1 cm, and highlighted by gorgeous snow-white "rosettes" of Albite var: Cleavelandite, to create a fantastic cabinet display piece. No major damage that I can find on the front/display side of the specimen, maybe a few tiny "flea bites", but what's most impressive to me is that a large portion of the back of the piece is re-crystallized ("re-healed"), so it's nearly a complete "floater", though there are some separation marks on the Albite that are not fully crystallized. Overall it's as striking and dramatic specimen of this classic material. NO REPAIRS also, which is not terribly common for this material, as they often have to be glued back together when they reach this size. I would put a value on this one in the $4,000-$5,000 range. From the collection of Kurt Hefendehl (#234 AP), 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.