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I’ve posted a new Brazil Update with superb, diverse specimens, including a spectacular morganite, remarkable new synchysites, blue montebrasite, pleochroic uvite, elbaite, brazilianite, hydroxylherderite and more.
I’ve added a new Morocco Update featuring a small number of excellent quality blue barite specimens from the Sidi Lahcen Mine, from beautiful cabinet specimens to super miniatures. These specimens are from a 2013 find of amazing top-quality crystals and crystal groups.
I’ve added a new USA Update, with excellent specimens of microcline var. amazonite and a rhodochrosite from Colorado, purple fluorapatites from South Dakota, a Missouri millerite, Arizona chrysocolla and more.
I’ve added an Egypt Update, featuring excellent new goethite pseudomorphs after marcasite crystals from the White Desert, north of Farafra Oasis, Egypt.
I’ve added some excellent yellow stilbites on the website in the new Mali Update. Among the nicest and most distinctive stilbites I’ve ever seen from anywhere, specimens from Diamonkara have beautiful colour and form. These new Mali stilbites are perhaps not yet appreciated for what they are – these are striking, colourful display specimens of a mineral that is often pale and drab.
I’ve added some super new specimens of erythrite from Bou Azzer, along with excellent new, very different, barite specimens from Bou Nahas. These are beautiful erythrite specimens from the contemporary classic locality generally regarded as having produced the world’s finest erythrites, and the barites are from a locality that has been known for quite some time but has been the source of a few very fine specimens more recently.
I’ve added beautiful elbaite tourmaline specimens in this Stak Nala Tourmaline Update – I’ve also included a great lepidolite. The elbaites are highly aesthetic, in combination with albite, and there is some good colour zoning among these pieces. I was fortunate to acquire these from a member of the family that mines them.
In this France Update, I am including the first of the specimens from the 2015 Ste. Marie Show. Despite the host country, the show is truly not full of French mineral specimens, given their relative scarcity, and the ones that are there are highly prized. Nonetheless, I was able to acquire a few excellent French pieces.
In this Broken Hill Update, I’ve added a small group of fine specimens from the classic Australian locality. Today the best sources for classic specimens from Broken Hill are old collections – these are from the collection of Milton Lavers, who was a well-known collector from Broken Hill.
I’ve added a new Namibia Update with selected excellent specimens from the Tsumeb Mine and also from the Kaokoveld Plateau in Namibia.
I’ve made no secret of my belief that excellent black crystals are very cool. But colour is great too, and the latest update has lots! The new DR Congo Update features some amazing hues of pink in beautiful specimens of cobaltoan dolomite from Katanga, some of which have green malachite in association. The update also includes a specimen with exquisite twinned calcite crystals from Mashamba West.
This Malawi Update features a small number of selected, different, specimens from well-known Mount Malosa (the world’s top locality for fine aegirine crystals), and two super aegirine crystals from a recent find at the Mulanje Massif, over 100 km to the south of Mount Malosa.