Brookite (ex Franceso Bedogne Collection)

Item Description

A classic old specimen of the famous crystals of Brookite from Magnet Cove. The label accompanying this piece refers to the piece as "Arkansite", which is a rarely used synonym for this specific material from Arkansas. Sharp, well-formed, blocky, pseudo-octahedral (orthorhombic) crystals of jet black Brookite measuring up to 1.0 cm sit aesthetically on dark smoky grey colored Quartz matrix. It's a fairly good specimen overall, with a few nicks to a couple of the smaller Brookites. The Quartz crystals are broken / incomplete in areas, but some of the smaller Quartzes are terminated. From the worldwide collection of famed Italian mineral collector, field collector and author, Francesco Bedogne of Sondrio, Italy (Collection #206). Bedogne wrote dozens of articles and several books about the mineralogy of Italian Alpine localities such as Val Bregaglia, Val Masino, Val Codera, Val Spluga, Valtellina and the famous Val Malenco. He was also the founder of the Valtellinese Mineralogical Institute.