Fluorite from Wuyi : Some People Juggle Geese

Item description / significance
This is a group of seven fluorite display objects, each on a wooden stand:

A mostly green polished sphere with a purple stripe (stand can rotate)
A smooth translucent purple lizard carving
A rough purple and green lizard carving with white crystals
A bright green translucent “kryptonite” natural crystal formation
A sparkly purple natural crystal formation
A polished slice of purple and green fluorite with white “feathers”
A purple three-legged “wealth toad” carving

Bought where
in Wuyi, Zhejiang Province, China, in a shop inside a residential complex

Age and origin
basically new, from Wuyi

What I like about them
There are so many kinds of fluorite… each of these pieces has unique characteristics in terms of color, texture, shape, size, and interaction with light, thus they attracted me for different reasons. The polished flat slice is the thing that struck me first, and seemed unique in the shop; the pure bright green crystal caught Siqi’s attention; the sphere has a purely symmetrical shape and smooth texture that minimizes distraction from the stone’s colors; I wanted a piece that showcases chaotic sparkly square crystals; and I wanted at least one animal carving.

Other notes
I bought two lizards even though I usually don’t buy two similar items. The logic is, if I buy two similar things, then I will probably wind up liking one more than the other, and the less-liked one will cause regret by seeming redundant. I decided that the lizards were both spectacular enough, each in its own way, and that I’d regret leaving either of them behind.

See below for more on how we found the shop where I got all this stuff, and photos of the items. In particular, the crystal on the far left really is bright green, though it doesn’t look green at all in the photo above!

My fluorite quest

There are fluorite mines in Wuyi, and a fluorite museum. I assumed there would be fluorite shops. However, if there are, we couldn’t find any, apart from the shop at the museum itself! We spent some time walking around looking for shops based on what must have been outdated information, and got a little discouraged, and also wet from rain that we weren’t prepared for.

However, my mother-in-law did some digging online using her phone, and magically dredged up contact information for some guy that sells fluorite from his house, by appointment. And he was home and agreed to see us.

The fluorite “shop”

It turns out, he had a kind of shop unit inside the housing complex, and also multiple garage units where he was storing items that didn’t fit in the shop. He was a carver of fluorite himself, and has been working in the industry for decades. He had dozens of lizard carvings, all different.

This is the only photo I took of the “shop” because I felt like taking photos (of stuff I wasn’t going to buy) would have been rude.

My fluorite purchases

From the artist’s inventory in the shop and one of the garages where Siqi and I poked around using our phones as flashlights, I chose six items to buy. Then the artist offered to give us a toad carving for free, which was nice because I’d admired one in the garage but left it behind.

Again, these are the 6 items I bought, plus the free toad.

The artist also gave Siqi’s mom a smaller stone ball, I guess as a kind of sales commission for contacting him on my behalf and bringing me to shop in his shop, haha. (I don’t have a photo of it.)