FMF - Friends of Minerals Forum, discussion and message board

[Gail]

Tie Die, yep, this reminds me of a beloved tee shirt I had in my hippy flower child days. The combination of blue and purple is still something that puts me in awe, Nature is amazing.

Fluorite ( blue ) over Fluorite ( purple ) over Fluorite ( yellowish white )

I think fluorites are a bit easy to like, there are so many variations, localities and sizes as well as shapes. What's not to like? In this case, what's not to love?

Stuart Wilensky photo.

[Gail]

This is beautiful all the way around. We display it in a cabinet with glass on all four sides. It looks as though snow has fallen on it and the two variations of colour make it a draw for non mineral visitors, as well as well seasoned collectors.
In our catalog we have written:

A large transparent green lustrous dodecahedral xl ( 54x52x35 mm) with a bit of white matrix sits on top of very big intergrown cluster of very large transparent lustrous purple octahedral florite xls up to 75 mm on edge, with several smaller green fluorite xls found on both the front and back side. Ex Stuart Wilensky, Steve Neely collection.

Stuart Wilensky photo.

[Gail]

The first photo is of a Japanese Stibnite that has quite a history. It is, really, an ( as Jordi says) UNordinary piece, but it is featured in the Barlow book on pages 14,15 and 16 as titled "Oddysey of a Mineral Specimen".
There is rather a sad tale that goes along with the mineral. It all started with the piece originating in the collection of Dr. Daisuke Tanaka, who obtained the specimen from the mine ( Ichinokawa Mine, Saijo, Iyo Province, Shikoku, Japan ). Tanaka died in 1954 ( the year I was born interestingly enough... ) and the specimen then went to Phoenix, Arizona dealer Dr. Ralph Mueller, who in turn sold it to Arch Oboler of California.
Oboler was a writer and was involved in the radio program " The Shadow" when Orson Welles played the lead. When Oboler was having construction done on his home for an addition a heavy rain fell and his young child fell in and drowned. It ended his collecting days and Paul Desautels and Martin Ehrmann outmaneuvered Ed Swoboda in acquiring most of the collection. But this piece wound up in the ownership of Ralph Mueller and his son, Jim, took over the business after his father passed away. The specimen was then sold to Harry Roberson, noted collector, who later won a series of local and national awards with his collection. The stibnite was often displayed in his cases.
When Roberson downsized he placed the specimen back with Mueller on consignment. It ended up in the hands of a retired priest, Father Raymond Lassuy of Phoenix.
John Barlow then entered the picture. He was in Tucson and had been looking for a good Japanese stibnite and was talking to Ron Vance, the priest overheard and struck a deal to sell the mineral to John. We eventually purchased it from Rob Lavinsky and have owned it for three years, it is listed in our catalog as number 5.
We wrote to Barlow's grandson and were given copies of letters from the priest and from Bob Jones of Arizona to add to the story.
it is special to Jim and me as we feel that we are caretaking in a long line of caretakers. It is wonderful to know so much about a specimen and it gives me a great story to tell as well!





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Photo number 2.
What is it about this piece that "rocks my world?", I think it is ART ...I think it is sculpture ... and I think it is so very unusual that it catches my attention every time I walk past the cabinet it sits in. When company comes and they ask what pieces are special to me, this is one of them. Ex Charles Key

PS. I had the pleasure of unpacking many of Charlie's specimens , to help out a friend after they were sold, and I got to put this aside to purchase.

Very aesthetic grouping of light pink Kutnohorite xl sprays to 25 mm perched on top edge of a rose pink, satiny-surfaced translucent perfectly symmetrical butterfly twin
( 35 x 33 x 15 mm ), with a neat vertical groove down one side and a second butterfly twin xl "foot" perpendicular to the primary twinned xl, of either manganoan calcite or of a rhodochrosite pseudomorph, and with a sprinkling of lustrous black manganite faceted micro-xls and a colour zoned cleaved calcite xl.

[Jordi Fabre]

Two short comments: the Stibnite is not "an ordinary piece" at all. Is on matrix, and specimens on matrix from Ichinokawa are extremely scarce. Folch's collection own some, all of them great (he flew to Ichinokawa to buy Stibnites when he knew that those specimens were mined there) and your piece not only resist the comparison but I consider it equal or better than the ones from Folch's collection.

The second comment is about the "Kutnohorite". I analyzed several of they and all of them are not Kutnohorite but a mix of Rhodochrosite and Kutnohorite. Maybe some could be a real Kutnohorite, but the ones that I analyzed have this peculiarity.

Thanks again for all this nice posts

Jordi

[alfredo]

Dear Gail,

Japanese minerals are one of my passions, so I'll take the liberty of commenting on your stibnite. Much larger ones have come out of the Ichinokawa mine in the past, but yours is far above average as far as aesthetics goes! I particularly like the characteristic little quartz druses on it too, which help distinguish the Ichinokawa stibnites from those of other localities (although they are only seen on few Ichinokawa pieces these days). On your locality label, "Ehime-ken" (correct spelling) is the current prefecture name, which was "Iyo province" up until the early 20th century, but they cover the same area, so it's a bit redundant to have both.

Since Japanese stibnites command significantly higher prices than chinese ones of similar size, some scam artist once in a while tries to pass off a chinese specimen as japanese. In the case of your specimen, given its known history, and its appearance, I have no doubt whatsoever that it is truly from Ichinokawa. Do you happen to know roughly when it arrived in the USA?

Regards,
Alfredo

[Gail]

Here is a mineral that I bought from Jordi. I like it as much today as the first day I laid eyes on it. Jordi, this is your photo from when I first bought it, hope you don't mind that I use it?

Our catalog write up:
Aesthetic curving stack of lustrous 4mm cubic pyrite xls with several globular lenticular calcite xls

[Carles Curto]

Most of analized samples of Kutnahorite from Kalahari are acicular crystals crossing Rhodochrosite, not easy to separate. Probably this kind of samples had some small Rhodochrosite impurities when they were analized. Kutnahorite and Rhodochrosite are quite different (chemical and structural) carbonates, difficult to confuse. Gail's especimen looks a very individualized white group and very probably it is just Kutnohorite.

[Jordi Fabre]

I'm afraid that I explained badly the Kutnohorite's analysis. Is not a Kutnohorite with traces of Rhodochrosite or something else, is a different case.

Joan Vinyals, an extremely good analyzer, used a pure "Kutnohorite" from Hotazel, very similar to the one of Gail, and he submited it first to a chemical analysis and then to a RDX prove, and for his (and my) surprise the result was not a Kutnohorite with traces of Rhodochrosite or a Rhodochrosite with traces of Kutnohorite but a combo of both species. We talked about it and the Joan's conclusion confirmed by other analysis, was that probably the majority of the "Kutnohorite" in fact are a mix of both species.

Again, this is not so important. Just a scientific curiosity to be commented, not much more.

Below you can see a copy of a RDX analysis of one "Kutnohorite"

Jordi

[Pete Modreski]

Re. these kutnohorite (?) specimens, I have always been quite interested in these manganese carbonate minerals too. I had access "at my fingertips" (almost) to some of my own past X-ray diffraction patterns of these minerals from several localities--not including Hotazel, but it is helpful to compare them.

(P.S., before I continue--Gail, I have very much appreciated seeing all your specimen photos, you have some really interesting & great ones; and yours too, Tracy.)

Good that you had that X-ray pattern to share here, Jordi (in the U.S. we always call it XRD, so it wasn't much of a jump to figure out that's what your RDX meant). If it works to post this, I am going to repost a copy of your same pattern, with the peaks marked with a red or pink line to indicate those I would attribute to rhochrosite or kutnohorite respectively. (I hope the colors are distinguishable enough--I was using "MS Paint" for this and their palette didn't have a paler pink. It looks like Jordi's pattern had the two distinguished in black or gray, but those were pretty hard to tell apart.) The two minerals have most of the same diffraction lines, just shifted a bit. Anyway, what I see in this pattern is that the sample seems to be very predominantly rhodochrosite, with just a small amount of kutnohorite present--say maybe 5:1 or 10:1 (one can only take a rough guess).

These minerals differ a bit in their fluorescence under shortwave ultraviolet, so, Gail, if you have access to a UV light, it might be interesting to look at this specimen and report what you see. Generally, manganocalcite (manganoan calcite to use proper words) usually, but not always, fluoresces red, often very strong (localities differ; it probably depends on the trace elements other than Mn in the calcite); kutnohorite usually fluoresces weaker and sometimes not at all; and rhodochrosite, never. (It really needs someone to make some systematic observations on all these minerals from a variety of localities, especially of the kutnohorite, to be sure that these generalizations are correct!) So, though it would not tell anything positively, it would be interesting to hear what the UV response of your specimen is.

Pete Modreski

[Gail]

When I was at the Smithsonian Museum of Nature and Science, a few weeks back, I watched Jeff Post do an analysis on a Hemimorphite, it was the same colour as many a Smithsonite and no one could be sure just by looking at it. The man who brought the specimen in invited me to watch how the equipment read his tiny bit of sample. It was a fascinating experience and I was mesmerized. And, just like the chart above, it had peaks and dips and I got to really see how it all came to the conclusion that it was, indeed, Hemimorphite and not Smithsonite although the owner was hoping for the latter.
So, i have a better understanding of how this all works.
I do believe we have a UV light around here somewhere, so must go see if I can dig it up and go on my adventure, like Nancy Drew. ( An American classic series of books about a young woman detective made popular in the 50's, 60's and beyond. )
On to my sleuth mission.....

[Gail]

To add to the fun of Tracy's fluorite EGG, I am posting one that I also enjoy and has a cast where a quartz crystal once was on the underside.

Description:
Wonderful ball fluorite ( without crystaline structure ), gossamer honey yellow translucent XL sphere ( 41 mm diameter ) on quartz bed, which is cast for terminal end of a large quartz past.

Photos by Gail Spann

[Gail]

One of my favourites of the Xenotime-(Y) specimens that we have in our collection.

Photo by Gail Spann

A rare Yttrium enriched brownish orange translucent elongated series of Xenotime-Y xls ( doubly terminated, with a perpendicular fully-terminated xl criss-crossing the topmost xl, possibly twinned? )
53 x 14 x 12 mm streched out along the face of a crumbly tan matrix block streaked with black ( Including some metallic prismatic xls ) with a smaller ( 12 x 9 x 5 mm ) doubly terminated xenotime-Y xl beside the end of the xenotime-Y xl series.

[Gail]

I LOVE mimetite, no two ways about it...I think it is such a beautiful colour and this is one of many that I have in my collection. This is my "snail", not to steal the name from Bill Larson's N'Chwaning Rhodo, but this is a different mineral altogether.

This is a fairly new addition to my Mimetite suite.
Photo by Gail Spann

[Gail]

Another CAST that really caught my eye in Tucson this year.

I call it the reverse "7" It really is a very different piece but one that I am quite fond of.

Gaudefroyite on Andradite cast after Hematite.
N'Chwaning Mine
Kuruman, Cape Province,
South Africa

Photo by Gail Spann

[GneissWare]

Hi Gail,
It's been a week since our last mineral fix ;=)
Y'all going to post some new photos and stories? I have really enjoyed them.
Bob