Cuprite on NATIVE Copper

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Copper Queen mine was the first great copper mine at Bisbee with later shafts and other workings added to it. Despite being a rich copper producer, crystallized Cuprite specimens were very rare with usually only smaller examples seen in collections. This sizable, cabinet-sized display specimen is one of the richest that we have seen, featuring individual Cuprite crystals exceptionally to 1 cm across which is staggering. Forming a dense, but vuggy aggregate, tarnished hackly metallic Native Copper is dispersed throughout the richly crystallized deep purple-red Cuprite with brecciated massive white vein Quartz cemented within the copper mineralization. The richness of this piece is very much reminiscent of the later 18th to early 19th century crystallized Cuprite from the famous Wheal Gorland mine in Cornwall, England, but the Cuprite crystals are more inclined to cubo-octahedral forms whilst the Wheal Gorland Cuprite was more octahedral in shape. A stunningly rich Arizonan Cuprite.