Mimetite from Clara Mine, Oberwolfach, Baden-Württemberg, Germany

A lovely thumbnail of very lustrous, deep yellow to orange, barrel-shaped mimetite crystals. The specimen comes from a find in 1998 in the 'Diagonaltrum' vein, Sohle (level) 7.2, when for a brief period there were prolific finds of these striking mimetite specimens, often on nicely contrasting bright white quartz matrix. Crystals could reach up to 1 cm in size, although typically they were far smaller, often lining small vugs in the quartz matrix; isolated clusters with relatively sizeable crystals like this piece were rather uncommon. Towards the left side, this specimen shows some remnants of pale blue fluorite, almost completely etched away.