Joaquim Callen's Photo Gallery

TE37AI9
A floater group of pyritohedral crystals without minor forms, with very well-defined faces and edges, very bright and partially coated by growths of calcite microcrystals. The specimen is from a locality where good Pyrite specimens are not so common.

TL62AI9
Brochantite crystals from Milpillas are famous for their sharpness and generally excellent quality. Here we have a group of idiomorphic Brochantite crystals with well-defined faces and edges and chisel-like terminations. The specimen’s composition, with large crystals on matrix coated by smaller crystals, makes for fine aesthetics. In my opinion this locality produces the world’s finest Brochantite specimens.

TR88AI9
Brochantite specimens from Milpillas have won a well-deserved fame for their excellent quality. In this case, the idiomorphic crystals are elongated,with sharp faces and edges and a very deep green color; the matrix is partially coated by a later generation of brochantite, showing pale green fibrous crystals with satiny luster. In my opinion this locality offers the world’s best Brochantite as judged by crystal size and sharpness, deep color and high luster.

TA70AG2
Most of the mineral species that the Milpillas mine has produced are the best of the best. The Brochantites are part of this rating and this piece is a good example of it for its excellent color, its richness of crystals, and the fact that the crystals are on a rock matrix.

EK57AI9
Milpillas Volborthite specimens are without doubt the world’s best: with their large crystal size and high luster they set a new standard for this rare species. This small specimen shows a rosette-shaped growth of flattened Volborthite crystals on matrix; the rosette is very sharp and deeply colored.

TD89AG1
Not all Volborthites are expensive! This group of crystals with a color change on top is not bad at all. The change of color, which may look like a break, makes its price reasonable.

TR13AG1
The Volborthites of Milpillas are among the most spectacular discoveries that have happened in the mineral world in recent years. In general they are of an enormous quality and in aspects this great rosette of crystals with Malachite and on matrix stands out among all others. If someone wants a definitive piece, here it is.
The specimen has been reviewed, photographed and published in the magazine ‘‘Mineral Up’’ on page 69 of the 2017/01 edition

TH16AI9
This is a single, sharp, doubly terminated floater of Malachite pseudomorphous after Azurite, apparently simple, but the polycrystalline growths are full of interesting details.

TP16AI9
Pseudocrystals of Malachite after Azurite in parallel growth on a matrix of fibrous Malachite: bright, with very rich color.

TG99AI9
This is a group of pseudocrystals of Malachite after Azurite, one of them clearly dominant, with very well-defined faces and edges and a very deep color, partially coated by fibrous Malachite.

TA68AG2
"Electric blue" is the proper name that has been given to the color of the best Azurites from Milpillas. Certainly these Azurites seem to have their own light as if they emit light instead of capturing it. This small filigree represents very well that "electric" color as well as the best quality of the Milpillas Azurites.

TA30AG1
Milpillas is in recent times a kind of lighthouse for the fans of minerals from all over the world. Within the extensive catalog of spectacular minerals their Cuprites are not the most recognized, but their quality is very high.

TF86AG1
Divergent groups of crystals of Adamite on a limonite matrix, with the centers of the crystals violet and a yellow body. Good display of the crystals and in general a different aspect from the usual one. It is not an Adamite like others.

TE87AG1
Boleite with Atacamite-Paratacamite on matrix. Coming from recent finds in the famous Amelia Mine due to work on the dumps there.

TQ51AG1
Creedites are well known from this mine, but their Fluorites are not as well known and yet they are excellent; octahedral and violet and more rarely in very large crystals such as this one. On a base of Quartz and a first generation of green Fluorite, the collector José Luis Vallecillo was right in his choice of this powerful Fluorite.

MV14AI9
This is a floater group of Hyalophane crystals from Busovaca—practically the only locality for fine specimens of this Feldspar-group species. The lustrous, translucent crystals are very obviously repeating double Baveno-Manebach twins.

HD14AI9
This specimen represents a classic Italian locality for Ilvaite. It is one of the better known localities for the species, but only a very small number of specimens from it have ever been recovered and saved. The Ilvaite crystals, some terminated sharply on one end and less sharply on the other end, are highly lustrous. Small quartz crystals are associated.

TP48AH3
Thinking of Grossular localities it is very probable that the first in our mind will be Val d’Ala. The crystals, very well defined and combining the forms of the dodecahedron and the trapezohedron, with splendid color and luster and the presence on the matrix of Diopside and Clinochlore crystals do this sample great credit as an Italian classic.

TN89AG1
Rudabánya is a classic European town famous for its Cuprites replaced by Malachite and although there are also Azurites they are normally of modest quality. This piece, however, is of good quality and size and improves on what is usually seen coming from that mine.

ET92AG6
We love the classics, and when they are good then it is the best! This classic from England easily was found 100 years ago and reflects very well a period in the history of minerals in which the United Kingdom was the reference for many mineral species, including Pyromorphite.
The Moutet collection from Marseille is the origin of this piece and the label of the prestigious shop Deyrolle de Paris that accompanies it is as historic as the Pyromorphite itself.

EP40AI6
The well known aesthetics of the Kosovar samples enhance some minerals that are currently considered as “modest,” as is the case with this Galena that forms cubo-octahedral crystals that are twinned according to the spinel-law, some of them flattened, all them extraordinarily bright and on matrix with Quartz crystals.

MG30AI6
A sample that reclaims a special attention, both for its spectacular appearance and for its complexity, because the Galena has the pseudomorph shape of parallel growths of old tabular Pyrrhotite crystals coated by Pyrite further recrystallized in small cubic and cubo-octahedral crystals, and with some twinned Sphalerite crystals. Being that the Pyrrhotite is after Galena and not Pyrite (which is the the most typical) the chemical stability of the sample seems assured.

EJ89AG8
The great mining region of Trepča is one of the largest polymetal deposits in the world and it has given for many years exceptional pieces of Sphalerite as well as varied combinations of sulfides and carbonates. This old piece, found before the mine went back to work in 2005, presents an architectural group of large rhombohedral Dolomite crystals partially coated by Calcite crystals and with a cluster of Pyrite crystals on one side of the piece. Small crystals of Arsenopyrite dot the large Dolomite crystals and also some small Quartz crystals complete the combo.

CA91AI6
Relatively common in the eighties the Celestine samples from Machov had a great success in the collectible mineralogical world due both for their strict mineralogical interest and the esthetic appearance of the crystals, elongated and transparent, often with smoky shades and extraordinarily bright. They are currently considered as classics of mineralogy and there are few samples for collectors. To all this we must add that the Celestine has the unusual property of being phosphorescent (during 1-2 seconds)

FF71AI9
An aesthetic group of octahedral Fluorite crystals with polycrystalline growths on the edges. The translucent Fluorite crystals have a very deep violet color, and they share their matrix with cubic Pyrite crystals and small Quartz crystals. The specimen is from a mine which went extinct many years ago.

TX97AH3
You can opine, perhaps, that Calcite is a “modest” species, but it can also reach unexpected heights of elegance as in the case of this complete crystal that is clear, colorless, very rich in faces and has additional elongated Calcite and Aragonite crystals with curious parallel growths. Due to its special transparency, the Calcite crystal has a high birrefringence that allows one to see “double” images through it.

EB66AG6
Between 1997 and 1998 there appeared in the 2nd Sovietskii Mine from Dalnegorsk specimens of red Quartz with a very different habit from the usual, elongated, crisscrossed, and forming very "sculptural" groups. Although at that time it was thought that they would continue to come out, as soon as they appeared they disappeared and they have not been seen again. From that extraordinary time we have rescued this elegant specimen in which the red Quartz is partially covered with white Quartz.

TC69AI2
Alexandrite was one of the favorite gemstones of the Russian Czars and the Orenburg deposits provided excellent specimens, such as this floater crystal that formed a complete cyclic ( sixling) twin with a good color change according to the type of incident light, green with natural light and reddish-brownish under incandescent light. A very good Russian classic.

TA27AI9
The Desmond Sacco collection has frequently bestowed small treasures on us, such as this group of Wulfenite crystals on matrix. The yellowish crystals are very sharp, very lustrous and translucent. We will send the former collection label to the buyer.

TQ46AI6
An example of the mineralogical variation of the peculiar Malawi pegmatites is this Pyrophanite that forms radial aggregates of dark brown acicular crystals that are on a Feldspar matrix with small smoky Quartz crystals.

TM49AI2
Some minerals are fortunate, either for the time they were discovered, or by the circumstances of their discovery or even by the place where they were found and beyond their greater or lesser beauty, of having become true myths of mineralogy. This is what happens with the Grandidierite of which, in addition, recent discoveries of an exceptional quality have been made to date, as is the case with this splendid individual flattened crystal with faces and edges unusually sharp and with the top termination very well defined while the lower termination is polycrystalline and somewhat rough. The crystal is bright, between transparent and translucent and it has a very deep and uniform bluish-green color.

NF29AI2
Luminosity and balance are surely the terms that best define this specimen which displays a pinacoidal termination of the Elbaite crystal that is extraordinarily sharp and bright and with prismatic faces that are very well defined with a marked color zoning, green on the terminal half and a vibrant pink on the bottom half. The matrix, with leafy aggregates of Mica some of them very aerial, add the final aesthetic touch.

TN56AG8
Sceptered Quartz variety smoky from an isolated find in which the upper part of the crystals is of an excellent smoky color and the lower part on which the scepter grows is milky Quartz with faces coated by parallel growths of small crystals, also Quartz.

MQ53AG6
In 2017 in the N'Chwaning I Mine some manual work for the extraction of collector’s specimens was reinitiated. This fine Rhodochrosite is a good example of the result of this work. Good color and great luster are the hallmarks of this piece.

MC56AI9
The Pyrite crystals on this specimen are perfect examples of the pyritohedron form, and they are very sharp and bright.
The specimen is from the collection of Enrique Moës, whose label we will send to the buyer.

CR76AI6
An association that is very uncommon at Pasto Bueno of Hübnerite and crystals of the Tennantite-Tetrahedrite Series. The Hübnerite is a floater crystal, between translucent and opaque, that has very well defined faces on both terminations. On this crystal there is a small group of Quartz crystals on which is a sharply twinned Tennantite-Tetrahedrite crystal.
The sample is from the Carles Curto collection whose label we’ll send to the buyer.

TR51AG2
Hutchinsonite is not a common mineral at all. Only in the Quiruvilca Mine hhave good specimens of this rare sulfoarsenide of lead and thallium been found, and although at this time given their relative abundance here it may seem that it is a common species, it is not like that at all. That said, this particular specimen is especially attractive for of the richness of its crystals, its definition and brightness and the contrast with the related Orpiment.

NF89AG8
A little-known mine, La Paloma, in the district of Quiruvilca, Peru, gives some curious specimens like this botryoidal Arsenic, with a certain beauty despite the modest aesthetics that this species usually has. Also on matrix, visible since it is white.

TF88AG1
Who does not like the Colombian emeralds? The depth of color and the perfection of its crystals are a luxury. This group of parallel crystals with their color and perfect geometry show us the reasons why this mineral is so appreciated.

MB91AG1
This elegant silver-rich Tetrahedrite with Chalcopyrite and Quartz has a long history with labels starting in 1925 by Franz Ding and ending with John S. White. At that time the silver-rich Tetrahedrite was called "Freibergite", that name has come with the label but an analysis have proven that it is not "Freibergite" but silver-rich Tetrahedrite. Although the photos may look like there is a broken crystal the piece is perfect and has no damage. We will send labels and the analysis to the buyer of the specimen.

TA97AG8
The Quartz from this Quarry which is already defunct (currently is completely flooded) is a world's reference due its quality and brightness. From the glorious past comes this beautiful group of Quartz crystals, several of them doubly terminated and partially coated with small scalenohedral crystals of Calcite.

DP16AG6
The Daunis collection is a faithful mirror of the minerals that were found in Spain in the 60’s and 70’s. The Asturreta Quarry, specifically the area called "El Pozo," produced in those years the best known Dolomites and Daunis had the ability to get some of them of extraordinary quality. This piece is a good example.

NP90AG2
The upper levels of the great classic mine of Panasqueira are now producing very good specimens. We have gone from a period of scarcity to the current wealth, but in my opinion we are in a transitory period that may end when the mine goes to different areas. So far several pieces as attractive as this zoned crystal of Fluorapatite have been recovered, isolated and well placed on its matrix of Quartz and Muscovite.

TB37AG6
There are few good Djurleites left from the ones recovered at the Aït Ahmane Mine between 2014 and 2015. We were lucky to be able to gain access to the finest pieces during Tucson 2017 and we still have some of great quality. This one in particular is the best we have left. These large crystals with good definition, both on the front and on the back, and with some minor matrix makes an excellent specimen.

TF90AI2
The gemstone deposits of the Brazilian pegmatites will never cease to amaze us. This is the case with this specimen, rich in elongated crystals of Elbaite with a considerable variety of terminal forms (many recrystallized), a bright green color and in a Quartz matrix, and with leafy aggregates of a Mica which, according their violet shades, could be Lepidolite.

EJ87AH3
Esthetics and mineralogy are joined on this elongated Fluorite sample, with Fluorite crystal cubes that are translucent, with a lilac color on their interior and strongly saturated violet color on their edges, and they are partially coated by Baryte on the back. They have grown around a fine elongated Stibnite crystal that is partially visible due to the transparency of the Fluorite.

NH66AH3
Geometry and a very intense luster characterize this twin of two crystals, a twin that is splendidly well defined and that has the added “touch” of very sharp laminar and perfectly defined Muscovite crystals.

TB49AH3
Accustomed to a very different esthetics on Pyromorphite samples from the Daoping mine, the finds between 2012 and 2013 surprised us with these very aerial and stylized shapes, whose crystals have very well defined faces and edges and showing a color and luster of great quality.

MA86AH3
Plumbogummite growths that are between botryoidal and stalactitic. They have an intense greenish-blue color and velvety surfaces and they have empty cores with the shape of lost Pyromorphite crystals as well as some yellow traces of these former Pyromorphite crystals. The sample has been analyzed and we’ll send a copy of the analysis to the buyer.

TF90AH3
Among the many and nice incentives that Chinese mining has provided us in recent years there are some scarce samples of botryoidal Hemimorphite with an especially intense and vivid blue color, with a surprising resemblance to the classic and very well known samples from the Sa Duchessa mine, in Sardinia.

ED18AH3
Mineral rarities can also have particular beauty, as is the case of these rare borates coexisting on the same sample, where the lenticular Roweite crystals, with an orange color and of great size and quality for what has been known of this species, are with radial aggregates of very sharp, colorless, clear and very bright Olshanskyite crystals plus also ornate by Calcite and nice Magnetite! The quality of the specimens is undoubtedly superior to what was previously known, both for the individuality of the Roweite crystals and for their sharpness, but also for their size and their association with first class Olshanskyite which makes them deserving to be in the best private collections and museums. We have analyzed specimens to confirm the identity of the species and we will send a copy of the different analyses to buyers.

MR90AH3
The year 2010 saw the ringing of the bell of the first great samples arriving from Huanggang, a mining area of which little had been spoken of until that moment. Among the novelties there were some Ilvaite samples with crystals of great size with very well defined faces and frequently with Quartz crystals. In a very short time these samples became classic, not only for China but also for the rest of the world.

ET96AH3
Even the most well known occurrences can adopt different forms, new or attractive, as this irregular surface completely recrystallized on both of its ends by transparent cubic Fluorite crystals with an intense violet color. Similar to a geode, but fully upholstered by Fluorite crystals “in” and “out” at the same time…

TX28AG1
In 2009, very curious Calcites with milky tops and bottoms, transparent lateral faces and "jungles" of inclusions of what seems to be a kind of mud, appeared in China. As fast as they appeared they disappeared and as far as I know it was never known exactly where they came from beyond "Lishui." This is a good example of this unusual find.

MR88AG1
Yes, it is Calcite, a very common species, but check out the crystallographic habit of this group of crystals and their light pink color. Different…

TC13AG1
Monumental, a top specimen. Few Acanthites are as impressive as those from this mine and this one in particular stands out for its extraordinary quality.

EH37AI6
A Broken Hill Anglesite with the special appeal of the ancient (the “oldies”) samples. The Anglesite has completely pseudomorphed a group of flattened Cerussite crystals with a coralloid aspect and that have a white color with pinkish shades.
The sample is from the René Hubin collection whose label we’ll send to the buyer with other two old labels that were with it.

ME68AI6
A Pakistan Beryl (aquamarine variety) crystal, very similar to old Brazilian samples, with the pinacoidal termination beveled by several pyramids and with inner phantom growths and dissolution channels all along the interior of the crystal.
The sample is from the Carles Manresa collection whose label we’ll send to the buyer.

EQ96AG1
The good definition and morphology of this Lazurite on Calcite takes us back to the time in which from this locality the "lapislazuli" was extracted and distributed throughout the world via the Silk Road.

TM96AH3
The most innovative of this Iranian Mimetite sample is, undoubtedly, its sharpness and that its tabular crystals have a color, a transparency and a luster that are unusual for the species. In this concrete case we must note their esthetic growth on a matrix of white Calcite crystals.

MH46AH3
Seen and unseen, these samples that appeared at the Munich Show in 2015 are currently a rarity. They form arborescent growths of Willemite crystals pseudomorphous after Descloizite and have partial coatings of small barrel-shaped Mimetite crystals with an intense orange color.
This specimen was published on the Mineralogical Record´s web page, in the ‘What's New’ section, report 49, May 7, 2018 edition.

EB50AH3
Different and aesthetic. Aggregates of cyclic twins of tabular Cerussite crystals that are finely bordered by very thin and acute Mimetite microcrystals with a very vivid orange-red color. These Mimetites have been analyzed and have proven to be a rare chromium-rich variety. We'll send a copy of the analysis to the buyer.

MP7AH3
The sample is from a locality that is unusual in non-Australian collections. It is aesthetic, with dendritic growths of equant crystals that are very rich in forms with very well defined faces of the predominant dodecahedron. An infrequent mineral curiosity.