Riemvasmaak Crystal Minerals

During these past couple of years the market has seen small incursions of beautiful green fluorite specimens from a place in South Africa called "Riemvasmaak." I now learn from Tom Gressman of Collector's Edge (www.CollectorsEdge.com) that that worthy firm has recently acquired a batch of wonderful Riemvasmaak fluorites—the best seen so far—which will be available at the upcoming Denver Show. Riemvasmaak is a lightly populated region 56 km from Kakamas, bordering the Orange River to the south and Namibia to the west. Its volcanic landscape contains isolated mountains, plateaus and valleys, punctuated by hot springs. A number of pegmatite deposits are present, none with any history of producing significant mineral specimens save for the earlier trickles of fluorite. But in 2007 and 2008, superb clusters of octahedral fluorite crystals, some with quartz crystals, were dug, largely with hand tools, from a series of small surface pockets. The fluorite specimens range from thumbnail to large cabinet, with individual crystals reaching 12 cm on edge; best of all, these sharp octahedral crystals are of a green hue so vivid that "neon green" seems the appropriate term…see the picture here, showing a cabinet-size group. We're in for a neon-green spectacle in the Collector's Edge room at the Merchandise Mart in Denver.