HPJ CONNOISSEURS PORTFOLIO: ULTRA RARE 5.15 CARAT VS TARRYALL MOUNTAIN (COLORADO) SHERRY TOPAZ

WORLD RARE 5.15 CARAT VS ‘SHERRY’ TARRYALL MOUNTAIN (COLORADO) TOPAZ 

TOTALLY UNTREATED

HPJ Connoisseurs Portfolio are very proud to present this exceptionally rare Tarryall Mountain (Colorado) Topaz here on BoB. It is a truly magnificent specimen in all respects, and the colour is the highly sought after ‘Sherry’ which is EXTREMELY rare - and then some !

The Topaz Mountain Gem mine is located in the Tarryall Mountains, a rugged, forested area that includes parts of Pike National Forest and the Lost Creek Wilderness. Starting in about 1990, Walt Rubeck, of Colorado Springs, located and developed 2 placer mining claims and set up a small, seasonal business that included a museum and store. Visitors could purchase buckets of topaz gravel that they could then screen on-site. Walt Rubeck died in the spring of 2005, at which time Joe Dorris took over the property (Dorris, 2007).

Topaz occurs in the Tarryall Mts. in miarolitic cavities in pegmatites, in colluvial deposits, and in colluvial/alluvial deposits produced by glacial meltwater (Michalski, 1986). At the Topaz Mountain Gem mine, topaz occurs in 2 types of deposits. First, it forms well rounded "cutters" in small seams of deeper gravel that was deposited between large boulders. Second, it occurs in "pristine", sharply terminated crystals in poorly sorted granite colluvium. Both types probably originated in the rugged outcrops of 970- to 990-million-year-old potassium rich granite that occur to the east and northwest of the mine. These outcrops are a part of the Redskin stock, a late intrusive phase of the Pikes Peak batholith. Topaz occurrences are concentrated along the contact between the Pikes Peak Granite and the Redskin stock (Muntyan and Muntyan, 1985).