Quartz

Highly unusual and rare 'Herkimer sphere' Quartz. It is believed that these grew in vesicles in hydrocarbons. Besides the rounded form, another unusual feature are the small flat crystal faces - I count five such faces on this specimen. You can read more about this unusual occurrence at the following link: http://www.herkimerhistory.com/QuartzSpheres.html. According to this website, the largest such sphere found to date (by 2009, the time the web page was written) was 1.o cm across. Since this one is 50% bigger than that, it is likely that this sphere is in the top percentile for size. Lustrous and undamaged. A superb rarity for a Quartz collector.