Here is a rare baryte specimen with reddish-brown tabular crystals from the Mendel pass road which was built between 1880 and 1885.

Comes with rare antique G. Gasser label dated between the 1890's and 1931 (when Gasser deceased). The label means: "Baryt xx ... förmig auf Porphyr v. Mendelstrasse, Bozen in Tirol" (Baryte xls ...-formed on porphyric rock from mendel road, Bozen in Tyrol).

Georg Gasser was born in Rentsch bei Bozen on April 23, 1857. After graduating from the Franziskaner High School in Bozen he began an apprenticeship under academic painter Johann Hintner. He also later attended the Academy of Arts in Munich (1878 - 1885).
In the 1890's Gasser's interest turned from art to natural history, and he began to collect natural history specimens of all kinds and set them up in his house as a private natural history museum. Travel guides published as early as 1893 recommend a visit to his house to view his collections. When in 1905 the Bozen city museum was opened, Gasser was allowed to set up his entire collection there.
It contained zoological, palaeontological and archaeological exhibits, but above all was his mineralogical collection of approximately 40,000 specimens. In addition to various minor publications, his 1913 monograph on "The Minerals of Tyrol" was notable. He dealt in minerals under the name of "Gasser's Mineralien-Kontor." Georg Gasser died June 2, 1931.
A few years after his death the Bozen Museum closed its doors and the mineral collection was transferred to Gasser's son, Alfred Gasser. The Mineralogical Institute of the University of Padua then purchased a portion of the collection, and other good specimens were sold privately. Following Alfred's death in 1969, the remainder of the collection was donated by Alfred's sister Cilli Gasser to form a natural history museum in the city Bozen, now called the Naturmuseum Südtirol (South Tyrol Museum of Nature).
(cit. Minrec)