Calaverite

Unknown Owner

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Calaverite is a very rare crystallized gold telluride species, found in good crystals over 1 mm in only a relatively few locations. The most classic old US locality for the species is from the silver and gold mines in Cripple Creek, Colorado (late 1800s and early 1900s). Most available specimens come from old collections and museum deaccessions. This is a very rich specimen for sheer quantity of platy calaverite crystals embedded in the matrix, showing brilliant metallic flashes from all sides of the specimen. Many of the embedded crystals reach 1 cm, some clusters more so. This came from Harvard via exchange to Phil Scalisi to George Elling, though no label accompanies the piece.