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Opalized Fluorite One of the most scarce, beautiful and unusual stones in the world, this stone only comes from one very small area of beryllium mines in the Utah west desert where they mine (the 4th lightest element) beryllium for use in missile nose cones and many other high-tech metallurgical uses. It is not open to the public for collecting and very little of this material sees anything other than the ore crusher to extract the about 1% to 2% beryllium contained in the opal tuff. Try to find this exquisite gemstone and you'll see that it's not only very rare, it is very scarce. It is a soft to hard opalized stone that forms in very small to 100+ pound "nodules", composed of predominantly opalized fluorite (blues, purples and whites), often with many other minerals such as quartz, dolomite, rhodonite, manganese, beryllium and other surprises. It often has a "crackled" appearance and is sometimes called "Tiffany Stone", "Bertrandite" "Purple Opal" or "Ice Cream Opalite". I call it Opal-Fluorite. UPDATE: I am now out of the lower grade bulk material with not allot of the higher grades as well. There is no more of this available where I used to dig it so the price has gone up and soon there will be no more available. |
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 Opal Fluorite rough 7/7 04 - Great selection of High Graded, larger pieces showing good potential! I will be selling very few more large lots - if you wait too long it will all be gone. Starting bid is $20.00/pound - even the lower grade junky stuff is selling for $25/lb at shows and this is truly a very nice lot. GOOD LUCK! 5 pounds $140.00 + SHIPPING SOLD |
