Phenakite on Smoky Quartz (ex Willard Wulff and Lazard Cahn Collections)

Item Description

A cool reference piece of highly sought after Phenakit from the historical locality at Mt. Antero. This specimen comes from the collection of Willard W. Wulff (1904-1998) of Colorado Springs, Colorado, a prominent figure and collector of Colorado minerals. Wulff was one of the founding members of the Colorado Springs Mineralogical Society in 1936. You can read Willard's bio on the Mineralogical Record website here ( http://www.minrec.org/labels.asp?colid=1528 ). The pieces comes with one of Wulff's famous 3x5 index card labels that states the specimen is from the collection of fellow CSMS founding member and mineral legend, Lazard Cahn ( http://www.minrec.org/labels.asp?page=1&colid=324 ). A wonderfully historic piece of this well known material from approximately 75-100 years ago. Small, sharp, lustrous white/colorless Phenakites measuring up to 3 mm sit on lustrous prismatic Smoky Quartz crystals matrix. This is a reference specimen, and not a killer display piece, but it's a good overall Antero Phenakite, and the fact that it once belonged to Lazard Cahn is signifcant and worth owning in my mind.