I’ve posted excellent new specimens from the John S. White quartz collection (click here).

As I have been posting these updates, I haven’t yet mentioned what a joy it is to be working with the specimens in this collection and I’d like to explain why.  John selected each one over many years (almost 30) – of course based upon his own eye for great pieces, but also because so many of these specimens are special, and illustrative of so many different quartz phenomena, also representing a great diversity of localities and mineral environments. It would be impossible to work with these pieces and not learn a lot. I hope you’ll have the same experience here on the website as you look through John’s quartz collection.

Quartz, var. smoky quartz (sceptre) Petersen Mountain,
Hallelujah Junction Area, Washoe Co., Nevada, USA – 8.6 cm

Quartz (oriented growth pattern dictated by epitaxy over feldspar),
Erongo Mountains, Erongo Region, Namibia – 5.0 cm

Quartz (reverse-sceptre), Leshan, Sichuan, China – 7.5 cm

Quartz var. amethyst, Diamond Willow Mine, McTavish Twp.,
Thunder Bay District, Ontario, Canada – 10.8 cm

Quartz, var. amethyst, (“grape amethyst”) from the Mamuju area,
Sulawesi Barat Province, Sulawesi, Indonesia
Field of view 1.7 cm

Quartz, Clinochlore inclusions, Tipling Mine, Ganesh Himal,
Dhading District, Province No. 3, Nepal – 10.1 cm

Quartz on fluorite, El Hammam Mine, Meknes,
Meknes-Tafilalet Region, Morocco – 5.6 cm

Quartz with rutile inclusions from Novo Horizonte, Bahia, Brazil – 4.9 cm

Quartz (crystallized shard), Sao Geraldo do Baixio,
Doce Valley, Minas Gerais, Brazil – 4.8 cm

Quartz, var. Amethyst, Boekenhoutshoek area, Mkobola,
Nkangala, Mpumalanga, South Africa – 3.7 cm

Quartz (curved crystals, chlorite inclusions), Santander, Colombia – 6.7 cm

Quartz, Peña Blanca Mine, San Pablo de Borbur, Boyacá Dept., Colombia – 6.2 cm

Quartz, Peña Blanca Mine, San Pablo de Borbur, Boyacá Dept., Colombia – 6.4 cm

Quartz with fluorapatite and cookeite inclusions, Parelhas, Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil
Field of view 1.7 cm

Quartz, Manali, Kullu District, Himachal Pradesh, India – 6.9 cm

Quartz (faden), Lignarre Valley, Ornon, Isère, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, France – 5.2 cm

Quartz, hematite inclusions, Zagi Mountain, Hameed Abad Kafoor Dheri,
Peshawar, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan – 6.3 cm

Quartz, Hunan, China – 5.0 cm

Quartz, Baghe Zahir, Sar-e-Sang River, Kokcha Valley,
Badakhshan, Afghanistan – 3.7 cm

Quartz, var. smoky quartz, Petersen Mountain,
Hallelujah Junction Area, Washoe Co., Nevada, USA
Field of view 6.5 cm

Quartz, var. smoky quartz, Petersen Mountain,
Hallelujah Junction Area, Washoe Co., Nevada, USA – 9.3 cm

Quartz, var. smoky quartz (sceptre) Petersen Mountain,
Hallelujah Junction Area, Washoe Co., Nevada, USA – 6.1 cm

Quartz, var. Amethyst, Cristobalite, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil