Stone

Just a few things for sale at the Curator's Eye online auction site. This is spessartine with schorl, Little Three Mine, San Diego County, California; spessartine is a close relative of garnet.

Cuprosmithsonite from the Tsumeb Mine, Tsumeb, Namibia.

Euclase on Cleavelandite, La Marina Mine, Boyacá Dept., Colombia

Pink Topaz in matrix, from Minas Gerais, Brazil. Besides its beauty, this is interesting for business reasons. One reason you have not heard of some of the beautiful minerals sold this way is that they are not hard enough to be cut and sold as gem stones. (Diamonds, rubies, emeralds and sapphires are among the hardest of all natural materials.) But Topaz is hard enough, and not so long ago this would have immediately been carved up for pendants and earrings. But someone saw this striking arrangement and decided that in the current market it would be worth more sold in this semi-raw form to a mineral collector. The topaz is about 1.5 inches long, 2.8 cm.

Multicolored Tourmaline on Smoky Quartz, Paprok Mine, Nuristan Province, Afghanistan

Smoky Quartz on Dolomite, Cavradi, St Gotthard, Switzerland

Mimetite, Congresso-Leon Mine, San Pedro Corralitos, Chihuahua, Mexico

Red Beryl, Harris Claim, Utah.

Malachite on Shattuckite with Quartz, Omaue Mine, Namibia