Polished Fluorite Octahedron, Denton Mine, Ozark-Mahoning Company, Harris Creek District, Southern Illinois Miniature 4 cm on edge and 5.5 cm point-to-point $150. Online 7/22 SOLD
NSMW10868
Zoned purple and clear, semi-transparent fluorite octahedron with high quality hand polished finish. Southern Illinois is world famous for producing cleavage octahedrons and literally millions of these were cut by local miners, workers and anyone else who lived in the county that had access to good quality material and a sharp chisel. However, really fine polished pieces are exceedingly rare in terms of number. I would estimate in terms of percentage they represent perhaps less than 0.00001 of the total. Fluorite is just very difficult to work with: it is subject to temperature cracking, cleaving and shipping during polishing and requires multiple grit changes with diligent cleaning to prevent contamination with the next stage. This piece was hand polished by Dan Spivey former Surveyor with Ozark-Mahoning who was also an excellent collector of minerals in the mines.