Description

This piece features a 1.6 cm doubly-terminated dioptase perched on small quartz crystals with plancheite. With magnification you can see that some of the quartz crystals contain complete balls (micro) of plancheite as inclusions – really cool. The dioptase is sharp, lustrous and has a slightly greener (ie less bluish tint) colour – with magnification under good light, one can make out beautiful internal phantom/zoning. The dioptase crystal grew incompletely at the back where there was quartz/matrix present during formation, but it’s the back and not relevant from the front.  The specimen is in excellent condition as you can see in the photos – no damage to the main termination and the lower (right) termination has a tiny (perhaps 0.5 mm chip along an edge but not at the tip).  There are other dioptase crystals lower on the piece – they are not all complete but that is only really noticeable by looking underneath – as displayed, they add colour, and are sharp and lustrous.  A sweet dioptase specimen.