Updated 2d ago

NATIVE Silver

$17,500.00

$40.00 shipping
Seller offers an extended return window of up to 30 days
Ships from USA

Crystal ClassicsFeatured

Tucson, Arizona, USA

7,543 for sale·132 sold

Norwegian Kongsberg Native Silver is universally known by collectors as one of the most desirable of minerals to own. This fancy miniature display piece balances richness with delicate sculptural beauty, but is also surprisingly robust. It features the perfect combination of bright metallic rose-copper coloured tarnished Native Silver wires with their exquisite patina intertwined with white rhombic crystals of Calcite. There is though, also a cluster of blocky, cuboid crystals of Native Silver with striking stepped growth lines across their surfaces, suggesting that perhaps the Native Silver has replaced earlier crystals of Argentite/Acanthite too. The largest of these blocky crystals reaches 1 cm across! If this was not impressive enough, then there is the small matter of several perfect short prismatic dark purple-black hexagonal microcrystals sitting within the Native Silver. These appear to be a silver sulphosalt, or perhaps silver sulphide. Pyrargyrite or Argentopyrite are possibilities. As far as Kongsberg miniatures go, this is right at the pinnacle of quality, exuding class.