Calcite

This pretty spray of glassy-white acicular Calcite prisms is from the famous St. Andreasberg mining district of Harz in Lower Saxony, Germany, and is from the collection of Archduke Stephan Franz Victor von Habsburg-Lothringen.   The fine, almost hair-like curved fan of Calcite crystals forms a 7 cm tall, flattened wheatsheaf spray of tightly developed, sub-parallel crystals with smaller 1 cm sprays overgrowing the top.  A superb and complete 9.8 x 8.0 cm Archduke Stephan label accompanies this specimen together with its matching catalogue label (75/365) glued to the specimen’s base.  A Carl Rumpff label, the German industrialist who bought the collection is also attached to the specimen.  A beautiful old Saxon Calcite from this most famous of old European collections.