Nagyagite on Rhodochrosite

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Nagyagite is a LEAD/GOLD/TELLURIUM/ANTIMONY sulfide. Usually it is an ugly matter for academic collectors only. This is a beautiful specimen with sexy, lustrous, large nagyagite crystals untainted by etching from calcite using acid (as is so often the case). The luster and metallic look is phenomenal and appealing, rarity or ot. The contrast to pink rhodochrosite makes the piece even better. This amazingly rich specimen of nagyagite is quite simply one of the very best I have ever seen for sale by a long shot, and I cannot recall one in a museum I liked better either (though I have seen upright crystals from here, again they are often etched). It is an extremely rare mineral and this is from the type locality, probably dating to the mid to late 1800s at a minimum. While larger crystals of some related tellurides species (sylvanite, krennerite) come very rarely from the Emperor Mine in Fiji, nagyagite is not on the market and is seldom seen in good crystals from anywhere else, even after over 100 years of looking. This piece is large, beautiful, and displays a shocking 2-inch-long ridge of flat but extremely sharp crystals. I have sold a very few nagyagites in the past for more money, even. But none I liked so much as this, for sheer appeal beyond the intellectual rarity of such things. For me, this was one of the major prizes turning up in an old collection which was premiered anonymously, at the 2010 Munich Show