Name: Copper
Brand: The Arkenstone
Price: 9500 USD
Availability: InStock

Copper

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One of the largest intact and elegant coppers we have seen of this style, from this mine. We have, of course, seen more large and massive coppers to 20 kilos or so, as massive objects for display in Chinese museums or my own collection, but not with this elegant, branchlike pattern as a splayed-out display plate. This is very unusual by the standards of this mine, as most pieces are more jumbled and massive at this size, whereas this is visually aesthetic and balanced in a way that the usual small specimens are from this locale. Chengmenshan has been worked for ages, and was a source of copper going back thousands of years in China. Specimens must have come out over all that time, but were mostly smelted. We have friends in Hubei Province's larger copper mining industry who had family and friends go to work in Jiangxi, and save these as they came out. While the mine has produced up til at least 2020, this particular lot is from an old stash and is an older style we have not seen in modern production (2010-20) which we have followed closely by being there on the ground. Modern material is often pulled off the belt going to the smelter, while this older material was pulled out from the underground workings. Overall a floater, complete all around. These coppers are from a small lot we purchased from an old miner's family in rural China, and were found here in the early 2000s. 507 grams