Detailed information
Dimensions
128 x 193 x 82
mm
Weight
1686 g
Locality
Puiva Mount, Saranpaul Khanty-Mansi Okrug, Tyumenskaya Oblast' Prepolar Ural, Western-Siberia, Russia
Condition
No recorded repairs
First described from the alpine clefts of the European Alps, the 'Gwindel' habit of Quartz are clusters of co-joined, flattened prismatic crystals aligned in a linear fashion, but with each slightly 'twisted' in relation to the next. Usually smoky in colour, but not always so, they are extremely rare in comparison to their 'normal' prismatic relations. Size-wise, anything above 10 cm across is considered exceptional from the Alps, but later discoveries, during the 1980s, at Puiva Mount, Saranpaul, in Prepolar Ural, Western-Siberia, Russia set a new benchmark. This staggering individual gwindel from Puiva, features a 16.7 cm x 11 cm crystal attached to a small (but still large) group of prismatic Smoky Quartz crystals. The gwindel has some frosted internal parts lower down, but towards its terminations it is gemmy, transparent, and a rich brown colour. Around its sides and edges it is absolutely perfect, with stunning shape for a gwindel, but it has chips to two of its terminations, one minor, another a little deeper. Nevertheless, this is a magnificent display-quality gwindel, and although smaller crystals are still occasionally found in the Alps, nothing new has come from Puiva for several decades. Ex G. Barker Collection, no. 599, acquired by him in 1996.