I hesitate to dub this “The Most Magnificent Pocket EVER” as I look back on older blog posts (I know, there haven't been many) I see several that claim things like "Biggest Goonie EVER" or "Best Drusy EVER". In almost every case - we've gotten BIGGER or BETTER! since the one photographed. I refrain from that assumption and dub this “The Most Magnificent Pocket of 2023”. But trust me – this one will quite possibly reign high for a long time.
What makes this pocket so special? Did you LOOK at this quartz? Holy Moley! It is high quality quartz, well formed with an abundance of rainbow shimmer. But the real reason it is so amazingly spectacular is where it was found – at the bottom of the goonie layer. These crystals are not your typical goonies. Although it is still a double layer of hard rock above the drusy layer, it appears that the quartz is a version of goonie that took on certain aspects of drusy!
Surprisingly, it wasn’t a large pocket, but it held an impressive amount of near perfect crystals. There are a few touchpoints as expected in a goonie pocket. There are three stars of this pocket that I have attempted to highlight in the two videos included on the product page.
The first is a beautiful double terminated, hand sized* crystal. There are no external blemishes and lots of internal activity – crackles and rainbows galore! This one sparkles.
*Hand sized in this case means “puny little Chris hands”
The next star is an outrageous cluster! Wow. It exhibits a smoky color in places, mostly at the tip. As with most clusters of this size, it was necessary to reconstruct it and make a few minor repairs. Please refer to our Herkimer FAQs page to read the difference between reconstructed and repaired. Perhaps the most amazing aspect of this one is the “dusting” or “sprinkles” of mini crystals in one spot. These are perfect miniature fully terminated Herkimer Diamonds.
The third? The pile of itty bitty crystals were located under the above mentioned sprinkled area. These did not break off the larger cluster. Every speck of powdery anthraxolite was sifted and combed through and the pocket scraped clean. We believe that we have every single miniature beauty.
We are offering this magnificent showpiece as an entire pocket, including the itty bitty extras. You can find the listing here
While we revel in the idea that The Best for a season isn’t necessarily the best EVER, we are certain this beauty is currently The Best EVER!