Baryte

Item Description

This specimen is listed as coming from Grand Junction, Colorado in Kurt's collection catalogue, but I firmly believe this is a mistake, as the only Barytes from anywhere near Grand Junctions are found in the Book Cliffs area, and they are dramatically different in habit, color and style than this piece. With that said, I can't determine exactly where it might be from, so we're leaving it simply as "Colorado" for the time being. The piece hosts a coverage of thin bladed crystals of Baryte which range from a soft golden hue to more of a darker reddish-brown (due to iron staining), which forming attractive "rosettes" on matrix. The largest individual Baryte crystal measures 1.4 cm across. From the collection of Kurt Hefendehl (#121 US), a well-known German collector all over Europe with worldwide contacts to dealers and collectors. He started collecting seriously at the age of 14 and his great and varied worldwide collection reached over 6000 pieces. He was very active mineralogically until shortly before his passing in 2020 at the age of 82. Considering his collection had a large number of pieces, it still had an unusually high standard of quality from most worldwide localities. He particularly specialized in all classics as well as minerals of the Black Forest, where he spent much time collecting. His Black Forest and German subcollections went to his good friend Wolfgang Wendel. We at The Arkenstone have the privilege of offering the remainder of this great worldwide collection over the next two to three years through our various platforms.