well, let's consider that, in terms of size and aesthetics, many consider 'la madona rosa' to be the best specimen of crystallized rose quartz in the world, so several hundreds K$ were to be expected I guess. For comparison, three years earlier than that, the 'Laurent' fluorite had been bought for the french NMNH at 250K€ (roughly 340K$ at that time) while a lebanese private collector had offered twice that amount for it. Common species at their best.
Joined: Tue Jun 03, 2008 4:40 pm Posts: 2667 Location: South Dakota
Question: I thought by default, and/or definition, that rose quartz is always "massive" in type. When it forms euhedral crystal faces, then it becomes pink quartz instead. The colors come from different mechanisms, like the color centers for pink quartz, and I believe rose quartz is prevented from growing crystals, or into crystals, because of its inherent nature.
What did I miss, or mess up on?
GIA has this on their website.... "....... small rose quartz specimens with good color tend to be rare. Rose quartz is always found in massive form, so it lacks regular, flat crystal faces. It’s typically found in pegmatites, but also occurs in hydrothermal veins." https://www.gia.edu/rose-quartz-description
_________________ MrAmethystguy ~ Some jokes just fluorite over my head!
When it forms euhedral crystal faces, then it becomes pink quartz instead.n
Absolutely, but rose quartz is a more familiar name and some people will fight tooth and nail to use it (analogous to other situations of course). It doesn't help that historically the material was thought to be rose quartz, and it took quite a while to figure out the exact coloration mechanisms, so old references do call it rose quartz. And of course when you have a piece worth a half million you can probably get away with a certain amount of imprecision. I am really not sure why rose quartz never shows crystal faces. It's not like it isn't monocrystalline. Someday I will take some time and read through the literature to see if there's a good answer.
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