Polybasite on Stephanite

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These iridescent and colorful silver species thumbnail specimens are some of the most legendary and desirable silver species, Canadian minerals, and/or thumbnails. When you get one that has such quality as this piece, you have the best of all worlds. The production was extremely limited - essentially to a shoebox full of specimens; and the polybasites were rare to begin with compared to the stephanites. Additionally, many got damaged. So, to obtain a 3-dimensional and undamaged, balanced thumbnail of this quality, is unbelievably rare today. The main polybasite crystal is 1.7 cm across, and it is beautifully displayed atop stephanite crystals. The color is spectacular: a metallic mix of iridescent purple, red and blue hues (much more obvious in person than the pictures indicate). We have told this story elsewhere on our website and will repeat it here, as it is so amazing: These were collected in 1977 by Joe Weinholtzner at this remote location. Rumour (and truth!) has it that nearly all were stored in a coffee can at the time and kept that way for decades. Though many were sold at the time, a number of fine pieces were kept back and these came to market 2 years back. The stephanite crystals, of which this is the largest and best that I have seen for sale from the locality, have been previously very scarce on the market in any size. MORE IMPORTANTLY, the condition of the top specimens recently turned up has been kept amazingly pristine because they were stored by a collecting partner at the time separately from the main lot, which literally went en masse into the coffee cans where they jumbled around for decades! The specimens feature a very attractive purple/blue/red/green iridescence, which sets them off from other worldwide localities for these species. The mine is defunct and despite searching, no more have been found here in 50 years now. A treasure! Dr. Erika Pohl-Ströher - 33511