Description

This is an exquisite specimen. It is top quality, the main crystal (3.4 cm) has super colour and the aesthetics of the brazilianite crystals perched selectively along the edges of the large albite crystal make this a special, distinctive piece. It was brought out in 2001, among a large lot of these produced in the early heyday at the locality, and was my single favourite of the entire lot.  The main crystal has beautiful internal sparkle.

In exceptional condition – pristine to the naked eye from the front and all around, except looking from the reverse side one of the small crystals has a tip missing, and there is a tiny chip in the main one that can be found with magnification, but absolutely no issue, at any level of collecting. This is a top quality specimen worthy of a top calibre collection.

World famous collector Steven Smale wrote in his book (The Smale Collection (Lithographie LLC, 2006)) about the “horizon” – where the upper edge of the specimen meets the “sky”, as he put it. For him, this is the most important part of a mineral specimen, and he characterized a specimen with damage-free crystals across its horizon as the “gold standard”. This specimen has a fantastic horizon – it is exemplary.

Exceptional display specimens of brazilianite have been found only in Brazil, and most of those have been produced in from the pegmatites intruded into the mica schists in the region of the Lavra do Corrego Frio, the type locality for brazilianite.  The Lavra do Telirio is one of these deposits.  It has now been closed down, as environmental regulators deemed it too close to the river to be operated. It is expected that there will be no further mining at the Telirio.