International Minerals 52
Pyingyi Taung, Male, Singu Township, Pyin-Oo-Lwin District, Mandalay Division, Burma (Myanmar)
Size: 5.7 x 4.3 x 2.2 cm
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Brilliant cherry-red rubellites are crowded on a piece of matrix, associated with white quartz and feldspar. It's an amazing specimen from a recent find in Pyingyi Taung that strikes with the most beautiful flower-like aesthetics! The brilliance of these tourmalines is really stunning! The short prismatic crystals are all transparent, color intensive, highly lustrous and have beautiful complex terminations! The matrix is in fact a solid dark tourmaline that is contacted and re-crystallized on the back. The condition is overall excellent with only some minor issues here and there.
Zard Mts., Kharan, Balochistan, Pakistan
Size: 4.3 x 4.1 x 3.6 cm
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This anatase specimen is absolutely exciting in person! It features a meaty 1.6 cm long anatase of brilliant quality. That anatase is sharp, highly lustrous, doubly terminated and flawless! It is set on an amazing piece of crystallized quartz matrix. The individual quartz crystals are all in best condition. They show superb luster and a lovely green color due to chlorite inclusions. It is a spectacular anatase specimen of excellent quality and aesthetics!
Erongo Mts., Karibib Constituency, Namibia
Size: 7 x 5.8 x 4 cm
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This excellent aquamarine from Namibia strikes with the most brilliant blue color!
The piece features a stocky main crystal with some side-crystals, as well as black schorl that are set at the front like dark sparkling garnets.
At the left side of the specimen there is also some hyalite present which is a rare combination.
About halfway through our video we activate the UV-light which makes the hyalite glow.
It's an attractive specimen of nice aesthetics and great crystal quality!
Paprok, Nuristan Province, Afghanistan
Size: 8.1 x 5 x 3.7 cm
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The tourmaline on this fantastic specimen has a visible length of 5.4 cm although it continues right to the bottom behind the lepidolite that surrounds it at the base. Most special about this crystal is the sharp and brilliantly lustrous pointed termination! If you turn the piece around in your hand you can see some really spectacular surface structure on the wet-look lustrous terminal faces. Absolutely amazing! The piece is in very good condition. It has small gap-fills (a small one on the front face and one near the contacted zone at the back) but the complex termination is all natural and undamaged. Its color ranges from a dark wine-red to a lovely pink in the middle and light blueish towards the termination. A stunning tourmaline specimen of best quality and aesthetics!
Kapudzhukh Mt, Zangezur Range, Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic, Azerbaijan
Size: 3.9 x 3 x 1.7 cm
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This is a striking rutile on matrix from Mount Kapudzhukh that features a single 1.8 cm rutile crystal on a contrastcing matrix with several small white quartz crystals. The rutile is dark, sharp and lustrous. It is in very best condition and shows disctinctive crystal architecture.
Hyderabad District, Telangana, India
Size: 9.5 x 7 x 5.7 cm
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This fine quartz specimen impresses with its extraordinarily brilliant luster and striking phantoms. Especially towards the crystal tips, the quality is wonderfully glassy, which lets you see the hematite phantoms inside quite clearly. The purple and red phantoms, together with some orange iron oxide at the bottom, make for a very lively and colorful piece! The condition of the crystals is also quite good. There are two broken crystals on the front, but this is hardly noticeable due to the richness of detail. It really is a particularly beautiful specimen from that important find!
Soppat, Kohistan, NWFP, Pakistan
Size: 4.5 x 4 x 3.2 cm
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It's a strikingly gemmy, complex and rather massive peridot from Soppat (Sapat Gali).
Most impressive here is not only the distinctive green color that doesn’t really need, but certainly rewards some backlight to glow.
It is even more the unusual gemminess! You might be used to the waxy peridots that are perhaps translucent and fine but hardly ever reach the quality of this crystal!
Here we have real gemmy zones that would be ideal cutting material and are exceedingly hard to find in natural specimens.
Have a look on our video for a better impression on the quality and shape!
The black crystal you can see on the back is a 1.6 cm magnetite.
Apart from that, this is pure peridot at its best!
The condition is virtually flawless. Even the bottom is completely re-crystallized.
Erongo Mts., Karibib Constituency, Namibia
Size: 7.6 x 5 x 4.1 cm
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This is a very distinctive combination of fluorite on a single quartz crystal. The fluorites show intensive green color with a dark brown/purple core. They are well developed and sharp, transparent and lustrous. There is some contact present at the backside and near the termination but that is hardly visible from the front. A distinctive and beautiful specimen from Erongo.
Fazenda do Centro, Castelo, Espírito Santo, Brazil
Size: 7.2 x 5.4 x 4.3 cm
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It is completely etched all over and in excellent condition. Only one part on the side is broken but that is vitually impossible to see as the crystal is so very vibrant. All those different faces and etchings and structures are highly attractive and totally unique for this one-time find in Brazil. Have a look on our video here for a better impression on the wonderful quality and aesthetics!
Yaogangxian Mine, Hunan Province, China
Size: 7.5 x 6 x 6.4 cm
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This stunning arsenopyrite strikes with exceptionally fine crystals on a beautiful white muscovite matrix. The overall aesthetics is really lovely here and the whole specimen is in excellent condition! Sharp and silvery lustrous arsenopyrite in absolute best condition all around! This whole specimen is a floater with only a few abrasions at the bottom. The rest, and especially the arsenopyrite itself, is in fantastic condition! The Yaogangxian mine has produced some of the finest arsenopyrite crystals worldwide and this one is a marvelous example!
Thomas Range, Juab Co., Utah, USA
Size: 2.5 x 2.2 x 1.8 cm
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This is an excellent thumbnail exemplar of topaz and bixbyite from the Thomas Range in Utah.
The main topaz in the front is 1.8 cm long and has a characteristic champagne color. It is well formed and terminated. The condition is well with only a somewhat damaged backside but which is not at all visible from the front.
Behind the topaz is a sharp black bixbyite with up to 2.1 cm in diameter.
It is well defined and brilliantly lustrous.
Between topaz and bixbyite is a white matrix-like cluster of topaz and fledspar which holds everything together.
North Waziristan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province, Pakistan
Size: 5.2 x 3.6 x 2.8 cm
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This unusual little fade-quartz from North Waziristan is quite remarkable. Most interesting and visually appealing here is the combination with green epidotes at the backside. While the quartz is all white and brilliant, the backside is dominated by dark green epidote, which is not just rare but also adds a strong contrast. The epidote must have grown on matrix somewhere but detached nicely. The quartz is all complete and fully terminated all around. I can see microscopic edge-wear at one crystal, the rest is flawless.