Golden Rutile-Threaded Smoky-Quartz Cathedral Cluster, Bahia, Brazil

A bouquet of café-hued quartz points shot-through with shimmering golden rutile hairs, crowned by a water-clear termination.

Bahia’s famed Novo Horizonte district produces some of the world’s most coveted rutilated quartz, and this 56-gram miniature is a textbook example. Eight sharply faceted smoky-quartz crystals radiate from a common base, forming a natural cathedral. Needles of acicular rutile—up to 12 mm long—cross-lace the transparent cores, catching light in metallic flashes. The colour gradient runs from pale tea at the tips to near colourless at the base, highlighting the golden inclusions. Faces are glassy with subtle “bread-crust” growth patterns; micro-rainbows flicker in internal fracture-planes. No repairs or polishing—just a minor clay patch on the underside.