Image: Gold-Quartz-mm11a

Description: Gold, Quartz Locality: Roşia Montanã (Verespatak; Vöröspatak; Goldbach), Alba County, Romania (Locality at mindat.org) Size: miniature, 4.3 x 2.7 x 1.3 cm Gold on Quartz This piece has to be one of the most aesthetic golds I have ever seen for sale from the old deposits here. It feaures an arborescent cluster of thick gold crystals leaping off contrasting TERMINATED quartz matrix. The gold is sturdy itself, and strongly embedded in the quartz as well. This incredibly aesthetic specimen has a long history! It was in the collection of the Austrian Museum of Vienna, until traded out and sold to collector Al Partee in the 1980s. When Al sold his his best miniature competition pieces, it went from him through Steve Neely to Irv Brown's miniature collection. I got it from Irv sometime in the late 1990s and traded it to Cal Graeber. Cal sold it to Mark when Mark was a curator up in Canada. Mark moved to Houston a couple of years ago. Mark brought it to lunch here in Dallas in July, and voila, its back with me again! I recognized it immediately. And, as a bonus, its now on the front cover of an important book on the mineralogy of Transylvania and these historic deposits.
Title: Gold-Quartz-mm11a
Credit: Image: http://www.irocks.com/db_pics/pics/mm11a.jpg, Description: http://www.irocks.com/render.html?species=Quartz&page=321
Author: Rob Lavinsky / iRocks.com
Usage Terms: Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0
License: CC BY-SA 3.0
License Link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0
Attribution Required?: Yes