Epidote (GEMMY "Faden" group) (ex Richard A. Kosnar Collection)

Item Description

This piece is from the collection of the well-known mineral dealer Richard Kosnar, who was a serious collector of Alpine and "Alpine-Type" minerals from around the world. He was especially fond of Epidote from the European Alpine clefts and the nearly identical deposits in Pakistan. 20+ years ago, we saw many good quality specimens of this material on the market, but it has become increasingly rare to find excellent specimens such as this from Tormiq. The Pakistani specimens are seemingly identical to the classic Alpine specimens from Europe, but and argument can be made that in certain instances, they have surpassed the European specimens with regard to their overall quality and gemminess. This beautiful miniature specimen is a very showy, multi-terminated, sharp, highly lustrous "Faden" crystal group featuring a predominant "sword"-shaped crystal on one end, and many smaller GEM quality crystal on the other side. The word "Faden" is the German word for "string" and you can clearly see a fibrous group of thin "strings" as the center of the specimen from which the larger Epidotes grew. The piece is nearly 100% damage free, and really looks great from several angles. The pleochroism is quite strong on this one as it shows hues which change from grass green to honey-gold to olive-oil colored. From the Rich Kosnar Collection, valued at $1500.