Ilvaite (?) with Quartz (ex Geary Murdock Collection)

South Mountain District, Owyhee County, Idaho
Small Cabinet, 7.3 x 6.8 x 4.2 cm
Start Time: 11/15/2018 7:00:00 pm (CST)
End Time: 11/27/2018 6:30:00 pm (CST)
Auction Closed

Item Description

This piece came to us with a small scrap of paper that simply said "Ilvaite, Idaho". If the piece is from Idaho, it's almost certainly from the South Mountian District. I'm not certain if the piece of paper that accompanied the piece was from Geary or not. As a matter of fact, I'm not 100% certain that this piece is actually an Ilvaite from Idaho. With that said, the piece features prismatic, dark greenish-black crystals measuring up to 1.8 cm scattered among thin hexagonal Quartz crystals on a thin layer of matrix. The greenish-black crystals appear as though they may be tetragonal in habit, so it's very possible that this is NOT Ilvaite, but I honestly don't know what it could be, or where it could be from. If anybody out there has any insight as to where this piece might be from, please let us know, so we can update the listing. I did find a specimen on mindat that is somewhat similar to this piece for reference ( https://www.mindat.org/photo-43029.html ), but I'm still not convinced this is actually Ilvaite. From the worldwide collection of noted Idaho collector Geary Murdock. Among other accomplishments, Geary was responsible for discovering some of the finest gem grade deep blue Aquamarine crystals in the Sawtooth Mountains of Idaho - which remain arguably the finest Aquamarines from any North American locality. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/36634006/geary-jack-murdock

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