VANADINITE

ABOUT THE SPECIMEN

Outstanding and unique grouping of vanadinite from one of the more sought after pockets in the extensive Mibladen workings. While most specimens that come out of the region show vanadinite spread out along a piece of host rock, this piece consists of one massive, complete cluster of multiple generations of crystals with minimal matrix. One can certainly tell when feeling the weight, as it's over 5 pounds! The crystals themselves are tightly interlocked with all different shapes and sizes, giving it a unique, almost etched appearance, with color ranging all the way from brick red to beige to black.

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A 2019 mining push at Mibladen - part of a broader resurgence of small-scale shaft sinking following years of market dependence on old stock - produced a material recognizably distinct from classic Mibladen vanadinite. Crystals from this period are prismatic to thickly tabular hexagonal prisms typically reaching 1.5–2.5 cm, strongly color-zoned between amber-gold and deep garnet-red within individual crystals, and notably gemmy relative to the flatter, more opaque material characteristic of earlier finds. Specimens occur predominantly as floaters extracted by hand through extremely confined passages, which accounts for their general freedom from matrix damage but also for the high proportion of contact marks on the base faces. The "Orange Crush" designation has been applied by certain dealers to describe the best zoned material from this period rather than a single documented pocket, and the name is not universal in the trade. A separate 2018 ACF Mine find produced skeletal orange-red crystals with a distinct morphology, confirming that the 2018–2019 window was broadly productive in ways earlier decades were not. The most saturated zoned examples from 2019 remain the most sought-after Mibladen material to emerge in recent years, and the best pieces were absorbed into collections quickly after reaching the market.