Rhodochrosite with Quartz (classic material)

Item Description

While Butte is famous for its world-class sulfides, it also produced some excellent Rhodochrosites, which are among the best of the species for any locality outside of Colorado. Certainly the 1950s-1960s era was the heyday of Butte Rhodos on the market, but they are notably scarce on the market now. Butte Rhodos were almost certainly the most recognized examples of the species from the Western United States during that time until mines like the Sunnyside and the Sweet Home in Colorado took over the mantle as producing some of the best Rhodochrosites from the United States, and in the case of the Sweet Home, certainly all of North America. With that said, these pieces from the Emma are still great old time classics and any Rhodo collection or suite of US minerals isn't complete without one. This attractive small cabinet specimen features sharp, well-formed, beautiful rose-pink colored rhombs of Rhodochrosite measuring up to 1.6 cm at tis longest dimension associated with small translucent, white/colorless Quartz crystals on matrix. Very little damage and quite showy. Valued $1,500-$2,000.
Ex George Loud Collection No. 10,141; 14.1.1 MT.14. George (born August 16, 1942) is a well-known mineral collector from Washington, DC and South Carolina respectively, and was a patent lawyer by trade for over 50 years. He assembled one of the great mineral collections in the U.S., comprising worldwide specimens, and in later years he sold the worldwide specimens to focus on minerals of the United States, specifically locality suites with an emphasis on amazing representation of species while still maintaining fine quality. The specimens remarkably range from micros to all the way up to large cabinets in size. We recently acquired most of his impressive 9000+ piece collection, and the VAST majority of these pieces will be offered here in the auctions, as we feel that everyone deserves and equal opportunity at acquiring these important, well-documented and fine quality specimens for their collections.
See: https://mineralogicalrecord.com/biographies_labels/george-loud for more information