Aragonite (''floater'' specimen - 2023 find)

Item Description

This piece comes to us from a brand new discovery in 2023 at this classic locality. A large number of the Aragonite specimens from various world localities are white, grey or colorless, but the pieces from around the city of Cuenca in the mountains of east-central Spain can often show a rare PURPLE color. For reference, according to mindat.org, Aragonite was named, "for the type locality, the village of Molina de Aragón, Spain, and not the province of Aragón, a mistake made by several later writers". So the history of this species is directly tied Spanish localities. Chemically, Aragonite is calcium carbonate, like Calcite, but it forms at a lower temperature and the crystals are orthorhombic, not trigonal. This piece is a beautiful example of these historic and well-known specimens featuring a few intergrown sharp, lustrous, translucent pseudo-hexagonal (they're actually cyclic twinned groups) crystals of Aragonite showing a combination of smoky-golden hues on the edges and gorgeous saturated purple tones in the centers of the crystals. The piece is a complete "floater", crystallized all around with no point of attachment or any damage that I can see. The flowing, three-dimensional aesthetic quality of the piece combined with superb form and glistening luster of the crystals themselves makes this a very desirable and choice example of these wonderful specimens. There is no iron oxide staining or inclusions, it's clean and beautiful. We picked up a very small parcel of these specimens, and only have a few to offer in the auctions going forward, so don't miss out as we don't know when pieces of this quality and color will be found again.