20 Most Beautiful Minerals And Stones in the World

[DFW]

34. I wish I had time to play the ebay game

But I don't. Ironically, my brother, who knows little about minerals, does, and occasionally finds something. He just bought a wild malachite from some guy in India, something I never would have tried or expected. He just sent the money to India, and then got the piece in the mail from there, which is weird, as most malachite comes from the old Zaire.

The Chinese also have found some incredibly fine flourite. If I can figure out how to take a decent photo of some of them, I'll post them, too. Nowadays, they have gotten way too expensive, but 20 years ago, you could take your pick for little money.

The pyrite cubes all come from one mine outside Zaragoza, in Spain. Pyrite crystals come in many forms, depending on trace elements, but the cube is the "purest" form of crystal. Over 20 years ago, these things started showing up from people who had traveled there, and I just couldn't stop buying them. I couldn't believe nature had allowed these to form. Besides, with Pyrite being such a fragile, brittle mineral, extracting these things from any matrix had to be a delicate procedure at best, But the ones at the Navajún mine were extracted from a soft limestone base that apparently permitted getting the crystals out without damaging them. I've heard there hasn't been much coming out of there in the last 15 years, but the few specimens I was able to grab up cost me little, and each one is fascinating in its own right. Displayed together, I could just stare at them all afternoon.