Cuprian Smithsonite with Calcite - image 1

Cuprian Smithsonite with Calcite

$650.00

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Crystal Classics
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Tucson, Arizona, USA
7,543 for sale·132 sold
Cuprian, or copper-bearing Smithsonite, can occur in green or blue colours but is usually only seen in banded botryoidal masses. The great mineralogical wonder that is Tsumeb mine is the exception, having provided us with crystals of both colours, but both are rare indeed, and especially so in well-formed larger crystals. This pretty, very large miniature Cuprian Smithsonite, presents a really exquisite mint-green colour, in admittedly small, but extremely glassy, transparent crystals, that contrast wonderfully well with the accompanying snow-white Calcite. The Smithsonite crystals reach 3 to 4 mm in size and display a very unusual equant, pseudo cubo-octahedral form. Ex Weyand Collection.

Product details

Species
Smithsonite, CalciteAbout Smithsonite →
SizeSmall Cabinet
Dimensions6.3 x 3.6 x 3.1 cm
Listed on04/11/2026
Locality
Namibia, Oshikoto Region, TsumebRegional guide →
SKUCC52954

Learn more

Smithsonite
Mineral guide
Learn about Smithsonite
ZnCO3 with botryoidal and crystalline forms, silky to vitreous luster, pastel hues from cobalt to yellow; localities boost collecting appeal.
Smithsonite
Regional guide
Smithsonite from Tsumeb, Namibia
is one of the defining collector minerals of Tsumeb: not merely because it is common there, but because Tsumeb turns a usually massive or botryoidal zinc carbonate into a locality signature mineral with uncommon crystal variety, depth of color, and association. Tsumeb smithsonite spans the familiar apple-greens and blue-greens of copper-bearing material, soft pink to violet-pink cobaltoan and manganoan-looking rhombs, yellow-brown and chocolate-brown iron-rich crystals, pale grey to white crusts, colorless to translucent rhombs, and rare red-pink material from the deeper oxidized workings. The best specimens combine sharp rhombohedral or scalenohedral crystals with the sculptural mineralogical theater for which Tsumeb is famous: galena-rich sulfide matrix, sugary dolomite, black tennantite and pyrite ore, cerussite, mimetite, malachite, wulfenite, duftite, dioptase, and willemite.