Calcite, Pyrite, Hematite

Unknown Owner

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This large, showy specimen passed from the Armstrong collection to the collection of Ed David, before coming to us. It is a rich carpet of calcite crystals with a pretty salmon hue from an amount of iron or hematite inclusion. Decorating these calcites (to 7 cm, but most in the 2 cm range) is a sprinkling of shiny golden pyrites. The dark matrix is mostly specular hematite. This is CLASSIC old mid-west material, rarely seen in such large plates! When I was a kid, we all wanted to just own a sample, 2-3 inches with a few good crystals. Something like this, I couldn't have imagined seeing. Also, it's in remarkable preservation. Few miners here took care to collect and preserve specimens, apparently, and so not as much made it to the market when the mine was open as you might have expected.