Dear Platinum Members:

If you would like to acquire any of these special offerings for your collection or for display purposes, contact us for further information. Thanks again, and we’re looking forward to telling you about our special Platinum-Level offerings for December.
A Seasonal Haiku from one of our staff members:
November wind
Blows October leaves
Into December
Linda Melodia

Please continue to visit our website as we expand resources available to our members.

Halite or sodium chloride is the most collectible of all chloride minerals and well-known for its perfection of cubic form. These specimens are clusters of perfect and slightly modified, transparent cubic crystals with hoppered structures, razor-sharp edges, and bright, vitreous faces. Their pleasing, pink-purple color has an interesting biogenic origin that results from organic pigmentation produced by the halophilic (salt-loving) bacteria that thrive in the salt flats of Searles Lake, San Bernardino County, California, a classic halite locality. Specimen sizes: 3.5” – 5” x 3”

Quartz (var. Rock Crystal): Collected from the Tri-State lead-zinc mining district near Joplin in southwestern Missouri, these four-to- five-inch clusters of transparent, colorless quartz crystals show both perfect and bladed, hexagonal prismatic habits. The bladed crystals approach two inches in length and are striated and terminated. These make nice display pieces as well as study specimens for comparison of quartz’s perfect and modified prismatic habits.
Size Ranges: 5’ x 2”- 5” x 3.5”

Muscovite (var. “Star” Muscovite) on Albite
These specimens of muscovite, the most abundant of the mica-group minerals, have a most unusual and attractive form as thick books of platy, twinned muscovite crystals. Twinning forms a distinctive, pointed, star-shaped pattern, while the silvery-lemon-yellow of the muscovite “stars” contrast nicely with the white albite matrix. These specimens are from pegmatites at Linopolis in the Doce Valley, Minas Gerais, Brazil. Specimen Sizes: 2” x 1”- 5”x 4”

Sulfur is the most colorful of all native elements and these specimens are from a classic locality—the Tlahualilo Sierra gypsum-sulfur mine at Llahualilo, Durango, Mexico—and are excellent examples of sulfur’s bright-yellow color. These nice display pieces have masses of yellow sulfur crystals, some of which are transparent, have lustrous faces, and range up to one-quarter inch in size. These yellow sulfur crystals rest on a colorful matrix of white, crystalline gypsum and orange-brown hematite atop a smooth, sawed limestone base. Specimen Sizes: 2.5” x 2”- 5.5”x 3”

Microcline, a potassium aluminum silicate and member of the feldspar-mineral group, is a common rock-forming mineral that only rarely occurs as collectible crystals. These specimens, from the famed pegmatite areas of Chaffee County, Colorado, are clusters of quarter-inch, blocky, triclinic crystals with frosted, sugary faces. The color is a warm tan with subtle hints of purple. These microcline crystals, many of which clearly exhibit contact twinning, are associated with white albite and rest atop a matrix of massive microcline. Specimen Sizes: 3.5’ x3.3” – 6’ x 3.5”

Quartz (var. Tangerine):These specimens are of an abundant mineral in a most unusual form—as clusters of well-developed, terminated, hexagonal quartz prisms about four inches in length, each coated and partially included with particles of the iron mineral hematite that impart a rich, tangerine-orange color. These specimens were collected from collapsed pegmatite pockets at the Santinho Mine near Corinto in Minas Gerais, Brazil. Specimen Sizes: 4’ x

1.5” – 5” x 2.5”

STILL AVAILABLE FROM LAST MONTH:

Cobaltoan Calcite with Dodamite: This unusual form of the common mineral calcite (calcium carbonate) is rich in the element cobalt which imparts a distinctive, wine-red color. These specimens, which consist of dense encrustations of modified rhombs of translucent crystals of cobaltoan calcite covering a matrix of dolomite rock, were collected at the Kambove copper-cobalt mine in the famed Katanga Copper Crescent region of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Specimen Sizes: 2.5”x 3.5” to 3”x 3.5” and 4”x3”

Purpurite is a solid-solution series of manganese and iron phosphates that forms only in certain lithium-rich granite pegmatites from the weathering of lithium manganese phosphate. Our specimens were collected at the Sanda

mab Pegmatite in the Karibib District of Namibia and show smooth, massive coatings of purpurite-heterosite with a rich purple color and soft luster covering a matrix of a quartz-rich pegmatite-rock. Specimen Sizes: 1.5”x 2’” and 2”x 3”

Shattuckite is a basic copper silicate that forms mainly from the weathering of malachite. Our specimens were collected at the now-abandoned Tantara copper mine in the Democratic Republic of Congo and consist of brilliant, blue-green encrustations of glassy shattuckite crystals covering a colorful, oxidized matrix of white quartz and orange-brown hematite. Specimen Sizes: 2’x 2.5” and 3.5”x 3”

FURTHER INFORMATION:
DISCOUNTS AVAILABLE: If you order 4 or more minerals from the offer sheet, you will receive a 10% discount.
ORDERING: To place an order or if you have any questions, please email me at Christine@mineralofthemonthclub.org or call at #800-941-5594.

SHIPPING: As always, shipping is free in the United States.
SPECIMEN SIZES: All of our specimens are approximate in size.
METHOD OF PAYMENT: We accept, Visa, MasterCard, American Express and checks.
Please make checks payable to Celestial Earth Stones.

christine@mineralofthemonthclub.org
www.mineralofthemonthclub.org
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Mineral-of-the-Month-Club/199595436770515
#800-941-5594