Friday Update – Rare Species

TODAY we bring you a magnificent suite of the ultimate in rare species. Many of the pieces on show in today’s update will outclass what even some of the world’s greatest museums hold in their care. So, if you are planning on assembling the best of the best then it is worth taking a closer look at some of these mineralogical treasures.

As we have seen previously, rare species are not always, or even often, beautiful. However, when one reaches the pinnacle of what these minerals can achieve there is sometimes, albeit rarely, beauty in even the rarest of things. To demonstrate this, today’s Alabandite from Broken Hill in Australia is not shiny and bright like the octahedral, or cubo-octahedral crystals found at the Type Locality in Romania, or more recently in Peru and Tanzania. Instead, it has its own unique form when it comes to Alabandite – fan-like or radiating dull brown arborescent dendrites.

Discovered in the 1960s at the 18th Level of the Zinc Corporation mine at Broken Hill, this one-time find furnished perhaps no more than a few hundred specimens and most were in the order of 4 to 5 cm in length and often damaged. They became instant classics and according to the late great Rock Currier the Natural History Museum in London exchanged a magnificent Bournonite from Herodsfoot mine in Cornwall, England to be able to obtain one of the better specimens.

There has been talk that their bizarre crystal form might even represent Alabandite pseudomorphs after Rambergite – an even rarer polymorph of manganese sulphide – but this has not been proven. Our specimen, at 17 cm in length, is larger than the 15 cm which Rock claimed was the largest spray he had seen and is immaculate and graceful in its shape. Furthermore, it has the prestige of coming from Milton Lavers’ Collection - one of the most important Broken Hill suites ever assembled.

There are of course more colourful rare species, our Euchroite being a prime example. Named in the 1820s after the Greek term for “beautiful colour” this pretty copper arsenate has never been found in better crystals than at Ľubietová (formerly Libethen) in Slovakia. Our offer is an old-time specimen, large and very displayable, but most importantly in stunning condition.

There are 18 other amazing specimens to catch up with in this update, so I won’t keep you any longer, other than to tell you that if you are specifically focused on Rare Species the new “Collections” search function on our website will take you to over one thousand rare minerals – click HERE to see more. That’s your weekend sorted!

Please note: Today's featured specimens are situated at both our US and UK showrooms.