Imperial Topaz (rare locality)

Karengerenge village, Solwezi District, North-Western Prov., Zambia
Small Cabinet, 5.2 x 0.9 x 0.7 cm, 8.9 grams
Start Time: 01/19/2023 7:00:00 pm (CST)
End Time: 01/26/2023 6:45:00 pm (CST)
Auction Closed
Winning Bid: $525

Item Description

Imperial Topaz is almost exclusively tied to the classics from Ouro Preto, Brazil. These impressive crystals have been mined for decades, and remain the standard for this variety of Topaz. Going back to 2009, we started seeing these exciting and beautiful Imperial Topaz crystals coming out of Zambia which was an unexpected discovery to say the least. At this year's Tucson Show we acquired a small parcel from a good friend who owns a claim in Zambia and is actively mining this material, and literally just took these out of the ground less than a year ago. They are notably similar to their famous and historic counterparts crystals from Ouro Preto in both color and habit, but I can say that some of these Zambian crystals are actually gemmier than many I've seen from Brazil. The reason you don't see any many gem quality Brazilian crystals is because a large percentage of them are faceted into gemstones, but our friend in Zambian didn't want to butcher good crystals, so we were fortunate to get some pieces like this with excellent gemminess. This piece is a good, sharp, lustrous, soft orange color crystal with decent overall gemminess. The piece has a classic "chisel"-shaped termination just like the Brazilian crystals. Minor roughness along the prism, and a small nick on the termination can be seen, so it's not perfect, but it's still a nice large miniature / small cabinet sized piece of these attractive and exciting pieces from this limited discovery. Specimen weight is 8.9 grams.

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Bidding History

Bid Amount Bid Time
$525 01/26/2023 6:37:08 pm (CST)
$500 01/26/2023 6:37:08 pm (CST)
$460 01/26/2023 6:13:41 pm (CST)
$450 01/26/2023 6:13:41 pm (CST)
$360 01/26/2023 6:13:06 pm (CST)
$350 01/26/2023 6:13:06 pm (CST)
$260 01/26/2023 1:44:05 pm (CST)
$250 01/26/2023 1:44:05 pm (CST)
$240 01/26/2023 1:43:48 pm (CST)
$230 01/26/2023 1:43:48 pm (CST)
$190 01/25/2023 2:45:04 pm (CST)
$186 01/25/2023 2:45:04 pm (CST)
$180 01/24/2023 6:22:31 pm (CST)
$170 01/24/2023 6:22:31 pm (CST)
$160 01/22/2023 5:39:31 pm (CST)
$150 01/22/2023 5:39:31 pm (CST)
$137 01/21/2023 6:49:35 pm (CST)
$127 01/21/2023 6:49:34 pm (CST)
$76 01/21/2023 1:37:26 pm (CST)
$66 01/21/2023 1:37:26 pm (CST)
$62 01/21/2023 12:38:03 am (CST)
$52 01/21/2023 12:38:03 am (CST)
$38 01/20/2023 11:49:02 am (CST)
$33 01/20/2023 11:49:02 am (CST)
$15 01/20/2023 3:03:50 am (CST)
$10 01/19/2023 9:24:31 pm (CST)