A collector's guide to Apache Mine, USA: its geology, mining history and notable minerals, illustrated with the 30 specimens documented from this locality on EarthWonders.
Key facts
Apache Mine is one of the great small-crystal vanadinite localities of the American Southwest: not a huge open pit, not a polymetallic giant, but a compact lead-vanadium occurrence in the Globe Hills north-west of Globe, Arizona, whose best specimens made the mine a classic. In the older literature and on labels it appears under several names — Apache Mine, Defiance Mine, Defiance Lead Mine, Apache Vanadium Mine, Defiance vein, and Vanadium shaft — all referring here to the Radium–Burch area locality in the Globe Hills Mining District, Gila County, Arizona, not to other Apache or Defiance mines elsewhere in the state.
The deposit is a narrow, steep vein system in Precambrian Apache Group Pioneer Quartzite, close to diabase, within the broader Globe-Miami mining region. Its mineralogical character is dominated by oxidation-zone lead and vanadium minerals: vanadinite, mottramite, descloizite, cerussite, anglesite, galena, calcite, quartz, and an intriguing suite of rarer lead-copper chlorides and related species. What gives Apache its collector stature is the extraordinary abundance of small, sharp, lustrous red to orange-red vanadinite crystals coating brecciated quartzite fragments and open fractures. Many crystals are only millimetric, but the best pieces are richly carpeted, gemmy, and brilliantly colored, with the red vanadinite set against pale quartz, white calcite, brown limonite, or dark mottramite.
Regional View
Country View
Historically, Apache is unusual because the specimen mineral and the ore mineral were essentially the same thing. Arizona Highways described the 1930 shipment as 5,577 pounds of red vanadinite crystals sent as a lead-vanadium concentrate, and MRDS-derived summaries record about 20 short tons of hand-picked ore running 14% V2O5. That dual identity — ore shipment and specimen bonanza — explains why Apache pieces range from rough, ore-like crusts to refined cabinet specimens with gemmy hexagonal crystals scattered over a quartz-rich plate.
Photo: Wikimedia Commons
Photo: Wikimedia Commons
Search for specimens: View all specimens from Apache Mine, USA
The Apache Mine lies in the NW¼ NW¼ of section 2, T1N, R15E, roughly five miles north-west of Globe and about 1.25 miles north-east of Radium on Pinal Creek. Its setting is the Globe Hills Mining District of Gila County, within the greater Globe-Miami region, a famous Arizona copper province; Apache itself, however, is best understood as a small oxidized Pb-V vein rather than as one of the major porphyry-copper mines that define the district economically.
The host is Pioneer Quartzite of the Apache Group. The vein occupies a fault zone in quartzite and diabase gouge, altered to a pale porous mass of clay, sericite, and calcite. The principal mineralized zone is reported as about 457 meters long and roughly 3 meters wide, striking approximately N35E and dipping steeply, near 80 degrees southeast. The main vein is bounded above by a diabase flow and below by a bedding-plane fault, with remarkably regular slickensided walls; mining stopes were commonly 3 to 12 feet wide, averaging about 5 feet. Ore minerals were concentrated in a comparatively narrow band within the middle of the altered fault zone, which helps explain the intensely mineralized seams and breccia plates described by collectors.
The workings were modest but productive for specimens: two shafts, drifts, crosscuts, raises, and stopes totaling about 1,400 feet. Shaft No. 1, the Vanadium shaft, reached about 150 feet with levels at 50 and 150 feet. Shaft No. 2 lay to the southwest, with levels at 30, 65, and 110 feet, and was reported partly filled with waste rock to the 65-foot level. Drifts explored the vein for about 550 feet along strike, and the vein was stoped for about 450 feet except where pillars remained.
The mine was discovered in the late nineteenth century, with 1875 appearing in locality summaries, and recorded production ran from 1929 to 1957. Operators and owners listed through the literature include Pfeister Brothers in 1913, Edward C. O’Brien & Co. around 1930, D.S. McDonald and Frank Chisum during the 1930s and 1940s, Ida McDonald around 1950 with Edwin Sikes operating under lease, Mercur-King Consolidated Mines, Ltd. in 1953, and later names including E.J. Sikes, J. Raggio, Fred Goat, and Worley, Sprik, Hunter. The best-known commercial episode remains the 1930 shipment by Edward C. O’Brien & Co., a small but memorable consignment of hand-picked vanadinite-rich ore.
The ore assemblage is classic oxidized lead-vanadium mineralization. Cerussite was the principal lead ore in places, commonly enveloping residual galena kernels with anglesite shells; vanadinite, mottramite, and descloizite were the dominant vanadium species. Mottramite occurs as black druses and, rarely, more sculptural arborescent-botryoidal forms. Descloizite is brown to reddish, disseminated and as thin incrustations on breccia fragments and fracture walls. Calcite appears both as gangue and as later white material deposited on or among vanadinite crystals. Quartzite fragments, diabase gouge, calcite, clay, and sericite gave the mine its porous, broken, pockety environment.
The specimen pockets and seams that made Apache famous were not large open caverns in the romantic sense; they were vanadinite-lined cracks, brecciated zones, and rock fragments richly encrusted with red crystals. Old collecting accounts describe loose chunks of breccia covered with crystals, pieces lightly cemented together by later vanadinite growth, and seams in which the collector could remove attractive pieces with little more than a blade. The resulting specimens are usually miniatures to small cabinets, flat plates, or irregular breccia fragments rather than large free-standing crystal groups.
Access today should be regarded as closed unless specific permission is obtained from the lawful land and mineral-rights holders. The locality lies on National Forest land, but that does not make it open for collecting; current locality notices warn that mining claims are active and that collecting is forbidden. The underground workings are old, partly backfilled, and historically described as having collapsed areas, so even apart from claim status, entering the workings would be unsafe and inappropriate.
Apache Mine vanadinite is typically a red to orange-red crust of small hexagonal prisms on quartzite, quartz-rich plates, calcite, or dark mottramite-bearing matrix, with individual crystals commonly around 1–2 mm and better documented examples reaching several millimeters; exceptional old specimens show gemmy reddish-orange crystals to about 7–8 mm scattered or richly packed across miniature to small-cabinet plates. The best pieces are not judged by crystal size alone but by saturation of color, sharp hexagonal form, luster, density of coverage, and contrast — red crystals on pale quartz or white calcite are especially desirable, as are old, undisturbed plates where the crystals have not been rubbed from the high points. Ordinary Apache pieces can look like brownish-red ore crusts; fine ones sparkle as continuous fields of sharp, transparent to translucent, ruby to orange-red prisms, sometimes with black mottramite or white calcite giving the plate added depth.
Beyond vanadinite, Apache is valued for the completeness of its oxidized Pb-V-Cu-Zn suite. Cerussite, anglesite, and galena document the alteration sequence from primary lead sulfide to secondary lead sulfate and carbonate; descloizite and mottramite represent the zinc- and copper-bearing vanadate side of the system; willemite and hemimorphite add a zinc-silicate component that is repeatedly noted in Arizona mineral references. The rarities are especially appealing to systematic collectors: boleite, brochantite, matlockite, fluorite, chrysocolla, covellite, malachite, palygorskite, and wulfenite are all recorded from the locality. Apache is not known as a type locality in the way that some other Arizona mines are, but its occurrences of boleite and matlockite give it significance well beyond ordinary vanadinite specimen collecting.
Apache Mine specimens are classic Arizona vanadinites, but they require informed handling and careful labeling. The crystals are small, relatively soft, and often perched on brecciated, uneven matrix; high points on older pieces are commonly abraded, and once the luster is rubbed from a crystal carpet it cannot be restored. Avoid brushing, ultrasonic cleaning, acid work, or aggressive washing. A blower bulb, a soft artist’s brush used sparingly, and a covered display box are safer choices.
The most common condition issue is not catastrophic breakage but attrition: missing tiny crystals along ridges, dulled terminations, and dust trapped in the druse. Because Apache material was mined and shipped partly as ore, not all pieces were recovered with specimen care. Many otherwise honest pieces have trimmed, sawn, or broken backs; this is acceptable if the display face is intact, but cabinet-quality examples should have a lively, undamaged crystal field.
Apache vanadinite is heavy for its size because of its lead content, and specimens should be handled as lead-bearing minerals: wash hands after handling, do not grind or lap the material, and keep fragments and dust away from children, pets, food preparation areas, and open drink containers. Vanadinite is not a radioactive mineral of concern in the ordinary collector sense, despite the locality’s “Radium” area name; the relevant collecting caution is lead and old-mine safety, not radioactivity.
No established Apache-specific market problem of dyed, heated, or laboratory-grown vanadinite is associated with the locality. The more realistic authenticity issues are locality drift and label confusion. Apache Mine, Gila County material may be mislabeled simply as “Apache Mine, Arizona,” which can be confused with other Apache-named mines in Arizona. It is also easy for non-specialist sellers to blur Apache with Old Yuma, North Geronimo, Moroccan, or other red vanadinite localities. Apache pieces tend to have small, sharp, richly colored crystals on quartzite or quartz-rich breccia plates, often with calcite, mottramite, descloizite, or limonitic matrix; Moroccan material more often shows larger, more three-dimensional crystal clusters on barite, goethite, or manganese oxide, while Old Yuma pieces commonly have their own distinct Tucson Mountains associations and may show larger, isolated crystals or wulfenite associations.
Market availability is moderate. Apache is a closed historic locality for practical collecting purposes, but old stock, collection dispersals, and dealer inventory continue to circulate. Most available specimens are thumbnails and miniatures with crystals in the 1–3 mm range; these remain affordable compared with major Moroccan cabinet pieces or elite Arizona vanadinites. Fine old plates with gemmy, saturated, damage-free crystals and good provenance are much scarcer, especially if they retain a historic label or came from a notable collection.
By the time Bob Jones wrote about Apache for Rock & Gem, the mine had already become one of those Arizona localities older collectors spoke of with the peculiar affection reserved for places that were both generous and physically uncomfortable. He remembered going underground near Globe and coming out, almost routinely, with good red vanadinite. The romance was not a grand cathedral pocket; it was the experience of climbing down into an old working, making one’s way through partly collapsed tunnels, and reaching veins where loose pieces of breccia were already coated in bright crystals.
Jones called Apache “vanadinite paradise,” and the phrase fits the locality better than any inflated claim of giant crystals. The Apache reward was abundance. In the productive seams, the breccia fragments were so thoroughly coated that a collector did not always need a hammer. Jones described sitting for an hour or two and simply plucking out vanadinite pieces from an open seam, using a blade to loosen fragments that were lightly attached to one another. The crystals were not large — generally under half an inch and usually far smaller — but they could cover gray host rock so completely that the whole piece glowed red.
That abundance also explains one of the mine’s strangest historical facts: vanadinite crystals were treated as ore. During wartime vanadium demand, miners reportedly scraped crystals from walls and rocks for shipment. Arizona Highways later summarized the oddity perfectly: Apache was “unusual because the ore mined was almost exclusively vanadinite crystals.” In 1930, 5,577 pounds of red crystals were shipped as a lead-vanadium concentrate. Few specimen localities blur the boundary between ore bin and display case so neatly.
The old collecting culture around Apache also had a social side. Jones recalled taking a flat or two of newly collected red specimens to meetings of the Mineralogical Society of Arizona so older members who could not go underground could still have a piece. That detail captures the pre-internet specimen economy at its best: a dangerous, dusty, ladder-and-tunnel locality yielding modest but beautiful pieces that circulated through club meetings, trades, and handwritten labels long before they appeared in online inventories.
