This piece has to be one of the most aesthetic golds I have ever seen for sale from the old deposits here. It feaures an arborescent cluster of thick gold crystals leaping off contrasting TERMINATED quartz matrix. The gold is sturdy itself, and strongly embedded in the quartz as well. This incredibly aesthetic specimen has a long history! It was in the collection of the Austrian Museum of Vienna, until traded out and sold to collector Al Partee in the 1980s. When Al sold his his best miniature competition pieces, it went from him through Steve Neely to Irv Brown's miniature collection. I got it from Irv sometime in the late 1990s and traded it to Cal Graeber. Cal sold it to Mark when Mark was a curator up in Canada. Mark moved to Houston a couple of years ago. Mark brought it to lunch here in Dallas in July, and voila, its back with me again! I recognized it immediately. And, as a bonus, its now on the front cover of an important book on the mineralogy of Transylvania and these historic deposits.
Attribution: Rob Lavinsky, iRocks.com – CC-BY-SA-3.0
You are free:
to share – to copy, distribute and transmit the work
to remix – to adapt the work
Under the following conditions:
attribution – You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.
share alike – If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you must distribute your contributions under the same or compatible license as the original.
This work is free and may be used by anyone for any purpose. If you wish to use this content, you do not need to request permission as long as you follow any licensing requirements mentioned on this page.
The Wikimedia Foundation has received an e-mail confirming that the copyright holder has approved publication under the terms mentioned on this page. This correspondence has been reviewed by a Volunteer Response Team (VRT) member and stored in our permission archive. The correspondence is available to trusted volunteers as ticket #2010022810018255.
== {{int:filedesc}} ==
{{Information
|Description=
{{en|1=Gold, Quartz
:: Locality: Roşia Montanã (Verespatak; Vöröspatak; Goldbach), Alba County, Romania ([http://www.mindat.org/loc-2607.html Lo