Scheelite, Albite and Muscovite from Mt. Xuebaoding

Dmension: 11.5cm x 4.5cm x 3.6cm
Weight: 225g
Locality: Mt. Xuebaoding, Pingwu Co., Mianyang Prefecture, Sichuan Province, China
 
This stunning specimen features a perfect dipyramidal crystal of Scheelite with very well defined faces and sharp edges of 2.5cm across, perched onto a beautiful matrix composed of silvery Muscovite and white Albite. The Scheelite crystals are exceedingly lustrous with an intense toffee-orange color.  Albite on this magnificent piece exhibits crystal twinning as minute parallel striations on the crystal faces, in the form of fine parallel segregations.
 
Carefully handmined from the renowned mining district around Pingwu at Mount Xuebaoding, in Sichuan Province, Scheelite from this locality has been recognized as the world's best.  The mountain had been banned from mining around 10 years ago due to the expansion of a nearby panda preserve and the exhaustion of a number of the larger scheelite-bearing veins, Scheelite specimen from this locality are now very sort after in the market and are always auctioned off.
 
Scheelite is named after Swedish chemist and amateur mineralogist Carl Wilhelm Scheele, who discovered the element Tungsten from Scheelite-Tungsten comes from two Swedish words, "tung" meaning heavy and "sten" meaning stone or rock.