THE SPHERICAL WORLD
A Publication of ATMOSPHERE
THE SOCIETY FOR THE APPRECIATION OF MINERAL SPHERES
Volume 18
 
 

ILLUMINATION FROM THE DARK CONTINENT



Africa, that land of hidden mysteries, has given the world of spheres a fascinating array of beauty. From gemmy deep wine red rubellite to swirling metallic Gibeon meteorites, the abundance is stunning.

Grandly Green
Several of the materials from Southern and mid-Africa are vibrantly green. Among the most interesting are deep green Buddstone and “Transvaal Jade.” The jade--not technically a real jade-- has alternating light and dark green colors with a glassy finish.

There is no doubt that malachite from the Congo region is a worldwide favorite—whether flower pattern, flowing arches, or bull’s eye circles. However, both war and the economics of this proverty-stricken region have combined to limit mining and today it is hard to locate whole spheres that do not have “fill” to plug holes. However, we still find a few and keep them for our customers.

Mix green with vibrant orange, and you have Africa’s beautiful Unikite.

Aragonite and Jaspers
If you like patterns, Southern Africa in particular has lots to offer.
Consider the cream colored aragonite with golden geometric lines, the ringed honey aragonite, the peach-ringed Gobi desert jasper, the orange/tan/peach/brown banded jaspers and the wonderful brown picture jasper with wonderful “tracery” lines running in a riot of directions. Morocco has banded “caramel”-colored jasper that looks good enough to eat.

Riot of Red
Africa has some of the most vivid red jaspers including the beautiful red River Jasper with deep fire engine red offset by intrusions of white quartz. There is also the grey Cherry Orchard Jasper broken up by splashes of blood red. Some startling nice plain red jasper also comes from this region.

Organics and Meteorites
Africa is the source of nearly all of the sphered meteorites in the world. One or more huge meteorites crashed in the Namibian wilderness millions of years ago scattering pieces throughout the area. In fact the world’s largest intact meteorite, the Hoba Meteorite, found on a farmer’s land, is now viewable by travelers. However, the smaller pieces have all been snapped up by searchers, leaving the cost of the remaining Gibeon meteorite spheres to climb annually as the scarcity grows. Other intergalactic material includes the stoney meteorites from Algeria and Morocco.

One of our favorite organics from Africa is the Archaen Butterstone, a light green organic material that comes from a 2500-year old blue-green algae known as Cyanobacteria. Morocco is the source of the world’s Orthoceras spheres, black matrix with millions of large white silhouetted pre-historic “critters” visible in the material.

Eye-Catching
From Namibia mostly comes wonderful blue and gold Tiger Eye. Not only do they boast the cat’s eye effect, but some have circles or other special “effects.” You can find spheres that have both blue and gold in them as they change color from top to bottom.

Related to this wonderful chatoyant material is Pietersite, found by Namibian mineral dealer Sid Pieters. It has flashes of chatoyancy in deep navy blue, golden yellow, silver and black, all swirled together. These spheres are very prized by collectors.

Further north, Morocco is favored for its white cat’s eye selenite—often called Satin Spar. It’s a creamy opaque chatoyant material  which also has some translucency.
 

African Blues
The brilliant Blue Lace Agate is well loved around the world. These spheres are a sky blue with tiny white “lace” irregular banding.

Periodically you can also find deep rich royal blue Sodalite coming from the dark continent and even a nice “etched” blue Chryoscolla in a light matrix.

There is also a material called “Blue Opal” which really isn’t blue. Also known as Girasol, it’s a pretty and glassy white opal with a bluish cast.

The Sugilite Family
No survey of Africa is complete without the inclusion of  Namibia’s brilliant purple sugilite and its related minerals—blue richtorite and pink bustamite. These lovely minerals, which often come in a combination of two or more are becoming very scarce because they are derived from a world famous manganese mine. However the mine has been shut down due to the declining demand for manganese and therefore, it is no longer possible to bring up these beautiful affiliated materials. We have a limited stock still available.

African Gems
The top of the list must be the beautiful and gemmy wine red Rubellite (red/pink tourmaline) from Nigeria. There are totally Rubellite spheres and those with giant pink crystals in grey limestone matrix.

These grey limestones spheres can also be found with large crystals of Green Tourmaline.

Also Black Tourmaline spheres come from this region, but these tend to be a bit unstable and while worth collecting for their rarity, they alternate a smooth and rough finish, and sometimes look as if they have been nicked.

Lastly, very hard to find  are Green Garnet, stunning gemmy all green flecked garnet spheres. We’ve only seen these once many years ago and grabbed all that we could get.

And if you want something that bespeaks South Africa’s incredible history in mining diamonds, you can also grab a Kimberlite sphere. While it doesn’t have diamonds, it is cut in from the material in which the diamonds are found.
 

Sphere of the Month?
Several of our faithful Spheres To You customers have created their own personal Sphere of the Month Club. They call us or email us each month with two or three items that they would like to add to their collection. If this appeals to you, too, please give Marcela a call and she’ll help you  set up your personal Sphere of the Month Club.

Please call (818) 991-5143 or email spheres@iswest for an appointment. Or go to the website to see our selection and order: www.spherestoyou.com.

Magical Moss Agate!!!!!

If you have a chance to check out the moss agate spheres in the Sphere’s To You Agate sections, you’ll give yourself a real treat.

We haven’t quite figured out why these are not more in demand than they are.

Moss agate spheres are the residue of algae that that died millions of years ago, but they have left a beautiful legacy. They are frequently glassy spheres that appear as if there are beautiful patterns visible under the surface..almost like looking into water and seeing into the depths.

Some of our favorites are the red/green moss agates from Oregon, or the glassy green “river” moss agate also from this region. The pink moss agate from South Africa is lovely. The red moss agate from Mexico is stunning.

However, no survey of moss agate can be complete without the fabulous Montana Moss Agate, the glassy opaque blue, blue/grey or whitish opal-like agate with brown and black markings in dots, swirls, rods and other unique shapes under the surface. Every agate collector should have one of these in his or her collection.

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MIRACULUS MALACHITE

Malachite derives its name from Greek word malakos meaning soft. According to another theory the word malachite comes from Greek malche, which means leaf, grass or green color. Mining Malachite began as early as 4000 BC by ancient Egyptians. It is the oldest known green pigment for cosmetics, painting and ceramics. (It occurs in Egyptian tomb paintings since the Fourth dynasty, and in European paintings in the 15th and 16th centuries.) In the Middle Ages, malachite was worn to protect from black magic and sorcery. In Ancient Greece amulets for children were made of malachite. In the New Stone Age came the discovery of the possibility of extracting certain metals from the ores in which they generally occur. Probably the first such material to be used was malachite, then already in use as a cosmetic and easily reduced to copper in a strong fire. It is impossible to be precise about the time and place of this discovery, but its consequences were tremendous. Namely it led to the search for other metallic ores, to the development of metallurgy. It is a semi-precious stone and also a valuable copper ore, hydrous copper carbonate. It is responsible for the green color of tarnished copper and bronze. Because of its distinctive bright green color and its presence in the weathered zone of nearly all copper deposits, malachite serves as a prospecting guide for that metal. Found in many places around the world, the most famous deposits are in from The Congo, Arizona and Russia, where the Czars created incredible jewelry, objects d’art and whole rooms. Come see the amazing patterned and chatoyant malachite spheres we recently acquired from Africa!
 

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TUSCON REPORT
Our trip this year produced a few surprises and many high quality spheres of everyone’s favorites. Here are some of our finds:

· Myrickite—A rare cinnabar mineral from California
· Turquoise--!!! We haven’t seen this in a long time.
· Dinosaur Bone—An abundance with two white and one huge one!
· Cordierite –A new and rare mineral from Russia. Has a lavender hue.
· Kataranskite—Another new mineral from Russia..It’s pink, lavender and black mottled together.
· Kunzite—A lovely pink from Australia
· Idocrase—A green mineral from California
· Dragonstone—Vivid red on aqua green or quartz rim around aqua green…from Australia
· Tri-colored Jade!—Lavendar, pink and green…Wyoming.
· Bright Red Rhodochrosite with Pyrite Patches from Argentina
· Thomsonite—Brown matrix with peach agate-like pockets from Texas.
· Russian Cat’s Eye Quartz—A grey color with chatoyancy
· Gemmy Green Garnet, variation Vessonite from Africa
· Fluoro-richtorite—Rare flourescent mineral from Canada
· “Bubble” Malachite—Wait till you see this! From Arizona.
· Blue Quartz from Brazil—Lovely color!
· New Russian Stromatolite—Great definition.
· Rainbow Feldspar—Surprises with lots of peach, gold and red colors
· Chatoyant Malachite—Really quite different!
· Green Chalcedony for South Africa and Blue from Turkey.
· Lots of wonderful red-yellow-blue-black striped Sardonyx from India.
· Coral Druzy Quartz Geode—If you’ve seen the pink ones, this is just a wonderfully different shade.
· Texas “Frump” Wood, which looks like blue and white agate!
· Plus we found Blue Aventurine, Munjina and incredible “Bull’s Eye” Ruby, which have been off the market for some years.
· Charoite with large golden crystals of Tincasite
· Fabulous large spheres showcase of Breciated Red Jasper, Snakeskin Jasper, Gabb’s Wood, Biggs Jasper, Blue Forest Jasper Core,  Neon Orange Aragonite,  Black Onyx, Polka Dot Mine Agate, Pink and Red Madagascar Petrified Wood, Labradorite, Bird’s Eye Rhyolite, Kambaba Jasper, Orange Rhyolite, Tabu Tabu, Sandstone and more
· This was also a great shopping trip for marbles. If you are a marble collector we may have a few not yet in your collection!
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Marcela’s Metaphysical Corner

Now and then, we hear of something that has special meaning for the metaphysical world. Ajoite falls into that category. These very precious and expensive marbles are used to produce a sense of peace which harmonizes the emotional body. Ajoite is said to assist in release of sorrow, anger and fear. It is wonderful if you seek to heal old wounds or find compassion and it assists in connection to Inner self, Higher Self and All That Is. It helps open one up to the boundless potential that exists in each one of us.It is often used in working with the throat and heart chakras and in meditation and for all levels of healing.

Ajoite was first found identified at Ajo in Arizona where it was discovered by the Papago Indians and highly valued as a bringer of purity and peace. Up until the early 1960's it was thought to be the only occurrence of this mineral. In fact it had been found, but not correctly identified, in 1947 at Messina (now called Musina) in the far North of South Africa. Only when a second pocket was discovered in 1960 was it correctly identified. The last discovery was in 1991 at the Messina mine in excess of 4000 feet below the surface. Since then the mine has been closed due to the very dangerous conditions. It is highly unlikely that the mine will ever be opened again. As a result of this the Ajoite crystals, which are much prized by mineral collectors, are virtually very difficult to obtain. However, we recently were able to get two!

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Sphere Collector News
 If you have interesting news about yourself or your collection, please email us at marcela@iswest.com or jackie@spherestoyou.com. Please put “Sphere Collector News” in the subject line.

 Looking for a Bargain? Go to our Specials Page and you’ll find lots of marked down items!

THE SPHERICAL WORLD
Editor:  Jackie Lapin
Published By:
Sphere’s To You
 PO Box 1270
Agoura Hills, CA 9l376
Phone: (8l8) 991-5143
FAX: (8l8) 707-3543
E-mail address:
Spheres@iswest.com

OOOOOOOOOOOO
 



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THE SPHERICAL WORLD
Editor:  Jackie Lapin
Published By:
Sphere’s To You
 PO Box 1270
Agoura Hills, CA 9l376
Phone: (8l8) 991-5143
FAX: (8l8) 707-3543
E-mail address:
Spheres@iswest.com
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

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