Azurite

Unknown Owner

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I had the good fortune to be able to run over to Evan Jones' booth real quickly at the start of the Tucson main show, and snag one good piece in the stampede to buy these. He was the only dealer-outlet and seller of this material, collected in a freak pocket at the little-known Carlota Mine on October 24, 2009. It was found on the 3460-foot-deep level. This was, to my eye on the prowl, the best large plate there for overall aesthetics and quality. It is a GORGEOUS, Tsumeb-intensity of blue color! The luster is fabulous, in person. The piece has sharp crystals, to 1 cm or so in size. They LOOK like Tsumeb material at half the price they should be, but are from Arizona instead. Nobody expected this, and to my knowledge in nearly 100 years of on and off mining here, such have not been found before. This makes the odds of a repeat find, somewhat low in my estimation. In any case, this is a truly beautiful and fine azurite plate for any locality, particularly Arizona, priced cheaply in my opinion. More of the long history on this locality can be found at MINDAT: http://www.mindat.org/loc-61469.html. Again, if you saw this at twice the price, labeled Tsumeb, you would not blink an eye or think it improper...it could pass!