Vivianite ex Hefendehl

Item Description

Here is a profuse spray of slender Vivianite crystals from the classic locality for the species at Huanuni, Bolivia. This large, divergent spray is composed of numerous, translucent, blue-green slender prismatic crystals of Vivianite to nearly 4 cm bursting up from the matrix. Some of the crystals are terminated, but many are not, but it doesn't effect the dramatic presence of this piece. Vivanite from Huanuni has become increasingly difficult to obtain these days, and very little material has come out over the past decade largely due to the fact that the miners are restricted from visiting this particular area to collect specimens, so it seems that good specimens from Huanuni will be nearly impossible to obtain. Kurt Hefendehl was a well-known collector in the mineral world all over Europe with worldwide contacts to dealers and collectors. He started collecting seriously at the age of 14 in about 1952; and his great and varied worldwide collection reached a number of 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 collection over the next two to three years through our various platforms.