Go Dudley, Go!
The mineral world has held its collective breath for several months now, wondering about the future supply of specimens from Pakistan and Afghanistan. Fortunately for us, the world's most intrepid mineral dealer, Dudley Blauwet of Mountain Minerals International, braved fighting in the streets, Pakistani Taliban, uncertain transportation and the usual suspects and made a spectacularly successful buying trip into the Northern Areas of Pakistan.
With skill, experience, and a lot of luck, Dudley made it back with some wonderful minerals from Pakistan and Afghanistan, and graciously invited me out for a visit. I'm pleased to offer here the first installment of great specimens from the first trip into these troubled places by any international dealer since all the troubles began. I hope you like them, and let's all hope for peace in southern Asia.
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Tourmaline
A beautiful, bi-color tourmaline "pencil." The crystal's pyramidal termination is a faint rose-lavendar, fading quickly to a very pleasing light green with just a hint of blue, then back to very light lavendar again at the base. The smaller crystals alongside the main crystal also follow this color sequence. A super-clear, pure gem tourmaline from the newest workings in Paprook. There is a bit of damage on the "back" of the crystal where another secondary crystal broke off (you can clearly see this in the first photo), but it is completely invisible when displayed with the intact secondary crystals facing the front. Simply a breathtaking single tourmaline!
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Tourmaline
with Lepidolite
A lovely, colorful tourmaline specimen. This little guy consists of a really dense-looking blue tourmaline crystal with a nice, lavendar termination, alongside a cluster of darker, olive green elbaite, capped by a neat little group of translucent pink lepidolite books. Very interesting colors in this small miniature specimen.
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Topaz
on Cleavelandite
This is the first of a number of notoriously difficult to photograph, but very nifty topaz specimens. A pair of very faint green, translucent to transparent, textbook terminated topazes emerging from a snowball of bright white cleavelandite, with a couple tiny, mint green elbaites here and there on the feldspar. Sharp!
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Topaz
on Cleavelandite
A larger cleavelandite snowball, with a larger, gemmier topaz, and more prominent (okay, larger) mint green elbaite. This time the topaz is almost completely clear, and a bit more blue (and less green) than the first one. I must stress that the color is very faint, but it is very nice, and the crystal habit is outstanding. This one also features two smaller topaz crystals nestled in the feldspar and 2 tiny elbaites. The cleavelandite is brighter white in person than the photo shows.
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Morganite, Tourmaline & Cleavelandite
on
Quartz
A super-clear and gemmy 2.5x2.5x1cm doubly-terminated light pink morganite crystal perched very aesthetically on top of a quartz cluster, with a few nice, big, translucent cleavelandite blades. The morganite is shot-through by a small, broken off opaque indicolite crystal, and there is another, larger one below the morganite. There is a ding on the morganite that is visible in the last photo that keeps this from being a really expensive specimen, but isn't visually distracting. Super crystal faces and clarity on this morganite.
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Morganite
with Albite
A nice, big, classic habit morganite crystal. This one features a modified termination and is very gemmy and clear. The color is also superb - very pink and not the less desirable orangish-pink. The crystal is cleaved from the matrix on the back, and has a couple of tiny edge dings, as well as one ding in the middle of the c-face, but it displays very nicely. The albite is embedded a couple of mm into the morganite. A really nice, big morganite at a good price.
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Aquamarine
on Feldspar
A sharp, hexagonal, cloudy, deep blue aquamarine crystal on a bit of feldspar with a few tiny quartz crystals. There is also some feldspar and tiny mica on the side and termination of the aqua. Very nice deep-blue color and an aesthetic arrangement.
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Aquamarine
on Muscovite
Really interesting specimen consisting of a bed of nice muscovite crystals hosting a couple of fat, light blue-green aquas with nicely modified terminations, and another big, doubly-terminated aqua wedged between them and perpendicular to them. The overall effect and main impression one gets when viewing this specimen from the "front" is a cross shape. Super specimen!
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Aquamarine
with Muscovite
Super-nice, fat, clear blue-green classic Nagar aqua cluster with the main crystal rising up above the fray of smaller aquas, muscovite and feldspar. The impression of another big, hexagonal aqua is visible on the back of the base of this specimen, where the two separated. A very nice aqua with no damage other than the back/bottom where it came loose from the pocket where it was born.
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Aquamarine
Nice jackstraw spray of stubby, blue-green aqua crystals. Many of the crystals are doubly-terminated, and one displays an interesting crystal-protruding-from-crystal-protruding-from-crystal form. Very pretty aquas on a bed of sparkly white and grey pegmatite matrix.
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Aquamarine
and Muscovite on Adularia
A great Pakistani Alpine classic! A bed of sharp, transparent to translucent adularia crystals and small muscovite books host a couple of clusters of small, clear blue-green aquamarines, several of which are doubly-terminated. This association is not common, and this is a very nice example.
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Aquamarine
on Feldspar
One of the most interesting aquamarine crystals I've ever seen. Emerging from a bed of coarse pegmatite material (a mishmash of quartz, albite and schorl) is a flawless, 2x1.5x4 cm, clear blue-green aqua, with a most fascinating, super-modified termination. Lying across part of the termination (see photo 3) is a small needle of schorl. The schorl has beautifully disrupted the growth of the aqau - to the point where it looks like the aqua began to twin along the length of the schorl crystal. I know, beryl doesn't twin, but that's how it looks! Super-nice aquamarine!
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Aquamarine
with Muscovite
One killer bi-color aquamarine crystal. This big pencil starts out a very pleasing, rich clear blue color. This color extends up about 2/3 of the way to the tip, at which point the color abruptly changes to a more typical clear, faint blue-green, almost colorless to the tip of the nicely modified termination. The fascinating thing is, that bottom 2/3 of the piece, with the really nice color, is also covered with a sprinkling of tiny muscovite crystals, which also stop abruptly at the point of color-change. A beautiful, significant crystal.
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Tourmaline
I saved the best for last! This is an absolutely amazing, deep emerald green, beautifully terminated clear elbaite from Afghanistan. The crystal is one big slab of pure cutter's dream - pure gem tourmaline with a color reminiscent of old Brazilian material. It's a big, heavy tourmaline crystal with unsurpassed green color and a root beer termination that begs close inspection! Wow!
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Alpine Minerals | Minerals | Pakistan 2002 | Page 2