The end of the Hauynes

We have received information that mining at the Wingertsberg (Steinbruch) quarry near the town of Nieder Mendig, Laacher See region, Eifel mountains in Germany has indeed been terminated after several previous announcements. This site is the only one in the world that provides (or rather provided) blue faceted hauynes. Translucent hauyns are also found sporadically in e.g. Tajikistan, but their quality is significantly lower than that of German hauyns. They can also be found in Canada, Italy, Tenerife (Spain) and Morocco (here, however, they do not quite reach jewellery quality).

Hauynes are found in the Eifel Mountains in weathered tuffs where they could be collected. Hauynes have a sapphire blue colour that easily matches the best sapphire.

Hauyn is mineralogically one of the minerals of the phoid group, typical of volcanic rocks (mainly phonolites containing alkali feldspars, mafic minerals and phoids). The age of volcanic activity in the Eifel area is estimated at 12,900 years. The hauynes were formed 2-4 km below the Earth’s surface along with other minerals (such as sanidine, nosean, nepheline, leucite, plagioclase, amphiboles, augite, magnetite, titanite, phlogopite, apatite and olivine) during the cooling of the magma.

The possibilities of collecting at this site were strongly limited by the frequency of finds. Hauynes larger than 6 mm were already very rare. Pieces over 10 mm were extremely rare and their price corresponded to this. Hauyn was even rarely used in jewellery.

Probably the most famous piece of jewellery is the butterfly brooch, which was auctioned by Sotheby’s in 1999 for SFr45,000 (about US$30,000). This piece of jewellery consists of faceted hauynes, diamonds and pink sapphires.