CUPRIAN Smithsonite CAST - image 1
CUPRIAN Smithsonite CAST - image 2
specimen video

CUPRIAN Smithsonite CAST

Unknown Owner
Green copper rich, or Cuprian, Smithsonite is one of the rarest and most desirable varieties of Smithsonite from the famous Tsumeb mine in Namibia. Specimens are usually small and unlike other varieties of Smithsonite they are usually poorly crystallized - just green masses. This attractive peppermint green Cuprian Smithsonite is quite sparry with a sugary finely crystallized texture. It appears to form a thin cast, or replacement, after some unknown earlier mineral, but it is largely its size - as small cabinet - which makes it so significant. This is a very rich Cuprian Smithsonite for Tsumeb mine.

Product details

Species
SmithsoniteAbout Smithsonite →
SizeSmall Cabinet
Dimensions5.5 x 8.6 x 2.0 cm
Added on10/24/2024
Locality
Namibia, Oshikoto Region, TsumebRegional guide →

Known provenance

DateCollectorAcquisition price
02/2026Unknown Owner$1,750.00
—Crystal ClassicsNot disclosed

Learn more

Smithsonite
Mineral guide
Learn about Smithsonite
ZnCO3 with botryoidal and crystalline forms, silky to vitreous luster, pastel hues from cobalt to yellow; localities boost collecting appeal.
Smithsonite
Regional guide
Smithsonite from Tsumeb, Namibia
is one of the defining collector minerals of Tsumeb: not merely because it is common there, but because Tsumeb turns a usually massive or botryoidal zinc carbonate into a locality signature mineral with uncommon crystal variety, depth of color, and association. Tsumeb smithsonite spans the familiar apple-greens and blue-greens of copper-bearing material, soft pink to violet-pink cobaltoan and manganoan-looking rhombs, yellow-brown and chocolate-brown iron-rich crystals, pale grey to white crusts, colorless to translucent rhombs, and rare red-pink material from the deeper oxidized workings. The best specimens combine sharp rhombohedral or scalenohedral crystals with the sculptural mineralogical theater for which Tsumeb is famous: galena-rich sulfide matrix, sugary dolomite, black tennantite and pyrite ore, cerussite, mimetite, malachite, wulfenite, duftite, dioptase, and willemite.