Descloizite - image 1

Descloizite

Unknown Owner
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The famous Berg Aukas Mine of Namibia has produced the world's finest descloizite specimens and this is a SUPERB, complete all-around example. This very showy piece consists of robust, lustrous, silvery-brown descloizite blades in a very distinctive arborescent form. The textbook-form crystals look like intergrown, branching spearpoints. Very nearly pristine, for such a complex specimen, which has only a few broken crystals. CLASSIC and EXCELLENT material from the Rob Smith Collection.

Product details

SpeciesDescloizite
SizeSmall Cabinet
Dimensions7.0 x 5.7 x 4.0 cm
Added on10/23/2024
LocalityNamibia, Otjozondjupa Region, Berg Aukas Mine

Known provenance

DateCollectorAcquisition price
08/2024Unknown OwnerNot disclosed
—The ArkenstoneNot disclosed

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Descloizite
Mineral guide
Learn about Descloizite
lead-zinc vanadate with lustrous rosettes, black-to-brown tones, and warm translucence; top localities Otavi, Namibia and Ojuela, Mexico.
Descloizite
Regional guide
Descloizite from Berg Aukas Mine, Namibia
Berg Aukas descloizite is one of the great “species-defining” classics: the locality by which serious collectors judge descloizite. The best pieces have a sculptural, almost architectural presence—dark brown to nearly black spear-point crystals, glossy blades, jackstraw bundles, radiating rosettes, and sharply terminated clusters that can look metallic under a show lamp yet glow warm reddish brown along thinner edges. Many specimens sit in pleasing contrast on pale calcite, dolomite, smithsonite, or willemite-bearing matrix, giving the dark vanadate crystals the visual authority of black lacquer against limestone.