Malachite Ps Azurite With Calcite - image 1

Malachite Ps Azurite With Calcite - image 2

Malachite Ps Azurite With Calcite

Unknown Owner

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This is from the so-called "sparkly pocket," and there are few to be had. I first saw this specimen in the late 1990s in the Marshall and Charlotte Sussman Tsumeb collection. They had just obtained it from a collection in Africa at that time. It is a perfectly balanced, symmetric, SHARP specimen, with unusual accenting by the drapery of white calcite. The malachite has completely replaced an azurite, of unusual isolation and textbook symmetry. Then, atop the malachite, a thin layer of micro quartz druse was deposited. This adds the uique sparkle, unlike malachite pseudos from any other locale that I know of. The calcite came later, a final deposition, and luckily directional in that it left the front face open. The piece is complete all around but for a few minor contact points, and is stunning in person. Out of all the malachite pseudos out there, and there are many from Tsumeb alone, this stands out. I have always thought it a unique specimen. I obtained it in 2002 in a trade from the Sussman collection and sold it to collector Marc Weill, who owned it for 8 years or so and from whom it recently came back to market in an exchange deal.