I feel your pain. I too have a dozen or more unlabeled but "very nice" specimens that one day I hope to link to an, as yet, unknown locality. I've managed a couple so far but it certainly keeps the brain active. Some years back I was given some "blue obsidian" from Queensland that appeared pretty suspect, but I tucked it away "just in case". Earlier this year I spilt a pile of old geo off prints and saw a paper on "blue obsidian from Geelong, Victoria". This actually was a paper reassigning it to tactylite and appeared to match the specimens I had. Still looking into it as the blue tachylite from Queensland does exist but the material from Victoria (collected pre 1900) may not.
The purple coquimbite was worth it all in my opinion Richard! Nice haul!... I saw that in one of the mineral magazines and thought : too cool! Some minerals just 'strike me' and I want one, ( like whewellite) but if it'll ever happen is another thing. I hope you enjoy it immensely.
Happily, although I wasn't certain, I was suspicious of its solubility in water, so I didn't wash it... all of these specimens had been in open boxes for so long it was a real pain to tediously remove the debris, but it was worth it.
Occasionally, an art gallery will mount an exhibition with no captions. Which is interesting and a bit challenging! I thought it was barite but wrong there obviously. A lovely chunk of stuff anyway.
I feel your pain. I too have a dozen or more unlabeled but "very nice" specimens that one day I hope to link to an, as yet, unknown locality. I've managed a couple so far but it certainly keeps the brain active. Some years back I was given some "blue obsidian" from Queensland that appeared pretty suspect, but I tucked it away "just in case". Earlier this year I spilt a pile of old geo off prints and saw a paper on "blue obsidian from Geelong, Victoria". This actually was a paper reassigning it to tactylite and appeared to match the specimens I had. Still looking into it as the blue tachylite from Queensland does exist but the material from Victoria (collected pre 1900) may not.
The purple coquimbite was worth it all in my opinion Richard! Nice haul!... I saw that in one of the mineral magazines and thought : too cool! Some minerals just 'strike me' and I want one, ( like whewellite) but if it'll ever happen is another thing. I hope you enjoy it immensely.
Happily, although I wasn't certain, I was suspicious of its solubility in water, so I didn't wash it... all of these specimens had been in open boxes for so long it was a real pain to tediously remove the debris, but it was worth it.
Occasionally, an art gallery will mount an exhibition with no captions. Which is interesting and a bit challenging! I thought it was barite but wrong there obviously. A lovely chunk of stuff anyway.