I was perhaps the first American to buy these epidotes from Pakistan when they came out. I was working with a friend I made on one of my trips over there. At first, neither he nor I was sure what they were. They <b>looked</b> like epidote, but the crystallography was off. And, some were <u><b>magnetic</b></u>! Now, epidote is definitely NOT magnetic. So what was going on? It turns out that many of the crystals have tiny yellow-green sphenes and black magnetites embedded on the surface. The sphenes are more noticeable than the magnetites. That explained the magnetism. The shapes of the crystals looked \"wrong\" because they are essentially strange tabular crystals, something I have never seen in epidote before.<BR>
This is one of the best pieces I bought. At one time I had over 300! So many crystals came from this find, but the majority were heavily contacted or damaged. And many un-beautiful (is that a word, or did I just invent something) clusters were found. Dramatic single crystals with a minimum of contacts are very rare. I kept 4 or 5 in my collection, none better than this. It measures 4.9 x 5.7 x 4 cm. This is as close to a perfect floater as was found. It has great luster and lots of sphene sprinkles!