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This is easily one of my
favorite pieces in my entire collection, because I found it purely by
chance. Even more odd was the area where I found it- at the base of a
basalt outcropping near Talcott Mountain in central Connecticut. It
merely consists of a rounded, rust-stained quartz rock through which
extends a vein of graphite!
When we had a retail
location in a suburb of Dayton, people would come in on occasion to try
to sell "crystals" to us. Usually the items were little more than the
milky quartz geodes that are very common in Indiana and Kentucky.
However, a man came in with this brookite beauty, which I decided that
I had to have. It is from the popular locality in Arkansas, and the
largest crystal, shown in the second image, has general dimensions of
about 0.8 x 0.8 x 0.5", or 2.0 x 2.0 x 1.3 cm. I bought it and two
rhodochrosite specimens (one crystal from the Sweet Home Mine and a
double stalactite from Peru, likely) for a bargain price.
At my first Tucson show,
I went into one particular booth whose items I thought were generally
overpriced. However, I saw a bowl full of apatite faceting rough that
had an incredible blue coloration, so I decided to take a closer look.
After about 2 minutes of fishing around, I pulled out this crystal,
which was the only intact one that I could find. It cost me $20, but I
have not seen another apatite crystal of this intense color since then,
so I no longer feel that I overspent for it.
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