This cabinet specimen hosts brilliant black metallic manganite crystals – these have top sharpness and lustre! There are small transparent quartz crystals in association. In excellent condition. From the Pete Richards collection, acquired by him in 1981. When you examine it closely, you see how great the crystals are. Beautiful manganite crystals! About Pete Richards […]

A plate of superb manganite crystals from the old mines at Steep Rock. These crystals are sharp and lustrous – really great! In excellent condition, no damage (incomplete crystals at the periphery where this was attached. I like it best standing vertically (with a bit of support), but it is a beauty in either orientation. […]

A very unusual specimen, from a small, one-time find – this quartz crystal contains inclusions of small, sharp, lemon-yellow tetrahedral helvine crystals. The helvine crystals are almost all under one face, which has been polished so they can be seen properly. The quartz crystal is in good condition overall with some chipping along an edge, […]

This is quite the specimen! It is a quartz pseudomorph after calcite, and the quartz is amethystine. The quartz evidently grew in quickly, as the pseudomorph exhibits skeletal growth. And… it’s an epimorph – it is hollow, lined with tiny amethyst crystals. It’s not too easy to see into the hollow, but it appears that […]

This is a beautiful crystallized quartz shard – it is sharp and lustrous with intricate crystallization patterns and a nicely developed pair of terminations at the top (the bottom is also fully crystallized). For most of its length, this crystal appears to have only four prism faces, the two others being so narrow as to […]

This is a polished slice of ametrine from the Anahi Mine. Ametrine is sectorally-zoned quartz, combining zones of amethyst and citrine. In an idealized case, there are three distinct alternating zones of each. This specimen exhibits this sectoral colour zoning – an excellent piece from the John S. White quartz collection. About John S. White […]

A superb Japan Law quartz twin from Nepal. This crystal is razor sharp and incredibly lustrous. The crystal on the left-hand side speaks for itself – water clear, simple, classic form. The crystal on the right has a couple of complex features. Its termination is incredibly cool, like a lake in a hollow surrounded by […]

Detailed Description A striking specimen of light amethystine quartz crystals. This is cactus quartz, and the second-generation is very finely crystallized. What makes it striking is that the second generation of crystals grew more prominently along the edges of certain prism faces, giving the appearance of raised edges and slightly hollowed faces. The first generation […]

This is a beautiful fenster quartz (window quartz) crystal from Brazil. It developed by skeletal growth – the edges grew more quickly than the faces. Sometimes the faces caught up with the edges and closed fully, while at other stages of the crystal’s growth, they did not – the completed faces are “windows”, behind which […]

This is a dramatic specimen – a sharp, lustrous quartz crystal with prominent inclusions of epidote, some of which is coated in red hematite. Unlike many inclusion specimens, this crystal is entirely natural, not polished.  In excellent condition, small chips. A superb inclusions specimen from the John S. White quartz collection. About John S. White […]

This specimen features a super example of the phenomenon of a “curved” or “bent” quartz crystal. A bent quartz crystal forms where there is significant physical stress on the crystal such that during formation it breaks more or less perpendicular to the c-axis and then continues to grow after slight displacement. When repeated, the process […]

A blocky, doubly-terminated quartz crystal from Jinkhoue. This crystal is dark due to inclusions – I’ve seen these attributed variously to graphite, hematite and bitumen, but I have not seen any definitive identification of them. The crystal itself has great form all-around, with minor crystals underneath. In very good condition, minor chipping. A textbook-form crystal […]