Bastnasite

Item Description

Over the last 10+ years, the locality at Zagi Mountain in Pakistan has provided collectors with some of the finest quality and amazingly gemmy Bastnasite specimens. Typically the species forms in relatively thin blades and was never suitable enough for cutting stones. The new find in Pakistan has produced some very thick crystals for the species, many of which are of gem quality. The stones cut from some of these crystals are extremely rare and highly prized by collectors. They often have some sort of inclusions, and completely eye clean gems are very hard to find. This particular stone is a beautiful Bastnasite with a "Brilliant Pear" cut. The stone has ONLY the slightest of inclusions with the naked eye, which is rare for this material, as they stones are almost always a bit included. It also exhibits a slight color change showing an orange color in incandescent light, but actually shows a yellowish-green color under the light of "energy saver" (mercury-bearing) light bulbs. This stone would fill a spot in any rare gem collection, and considering that very little of this material has come to the market recently, it's a great time to snag one of these stones before the price goes higher. It should be noted that this is specifically Bastnasite-(Ce), but for the purposes of gem collectors, it's often only referred to as Basnasite. The high retail value on this gem is $300 per carat.