Polybasite With Calcite and Stephanite - image 1

Polybasite With Calcite and Stephanite - image 2

Polybasite With Calcite and Stephanite

Unknown Owner

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A MAJOR, IMPORTANT specimen of Mexican silver species, with sharp polybasite crystals that are literally the size and aspect of Swiss hematites, so robust that I actually DID fall for the trick when shown the piece (at double this price to get me warmed up for a killer) AS a Swiss hematite. I made some fumbling comment about how I could not sell Swiss hematites in the US so well, but I thought the calcite so neat and unusual, like dhte contrast, and well...my source got me. Apparently the piece turned up at a small show, having come directly from a miner in Mexico up to the show and missing the normal channels such major pieces often get funnelled into. The calcite is a wonderful accent, and I cannot ever recall seeing another Mexican specimen of polybasite with such sheer, amazing contrast. Visually, this leaps out. The sparkling drusy calcite highlights the metallic, lustrous blades so nicely. Small barrel-like stephanites are in association as well (on the back), according to Dr. Terry Wallace who examined the specimen for me at the Denver show. He confirmed for me that the piece came from this small shaft adjoining two slightly different deposits, an aberration which is the reason why you have the calcite and the polybasite in the same place at the same time...normally not seen. This is an important Mexican specimen, and an important silver species specimen. If I can presume, I will say that 10 years ago it would have been quickly sold into the Miguel Romero collection at any price, and fit right in with his museum-level Mexican silver species suite which I have recently acuired fom the University of Arizona Science Center.