Tunellite (rare and fine quality)

Item Description

This is a good sized and fine quality cluster of well-formed, rare Tunellite crystals from this classic and highly productive borate mine in Death Valley, California. The piece is filled with layers of sharp, lustrous, well-formed, translucent, pale gray crystals with a wonderful pearlescent luster. The crystals are almost diamond shaped and viewing the piece along its side, the lamellar character of the mineral resulting from its perfect (100) cleavage can be seen. Tunellite is a rare hydrated strontium borate species - only found in California and Turkey - which named after George Tunell, Jr. a geochemistry professor at the University of California, Los Angeles. The mineral is found as a secondary species in borate deposits. This is certainly one of the best pieces we've seen for the species with exceptional crystals and few specimens were saved as they came out. Specimens of this quality are very hard to obtain today. If I had this one on the shelf at show, I would price it at around $2,000. From the collection of Colin Manlove, and formerly in the collection of Jim Minette, the premier collector of California borate minerals in the world from the 1960s to the 1990s. Jim worked for the U.S. Borax Mines for 44 years, starting as a mine engineer and eventually working his way up to mine manager.