Stibnite with Barite & Quartz, China

STIBNITE WITH BARITE & QUARTZ

Xikuangshan antimony deposit, Lengshuijiang Co., Loudi, Hunan, China

23 cm tall x 28 cm wide

The largest and most important stibnite specimens have historically come from Japan. The famous Ichinokawa Mine produced large lustrous sword-like crystals of stibnite towards the end of the 19th century. Nearly all of the important specimens are now in museums. For nearly 100 years there were no stibnite specimens that approached the Japanese examples. In the late 1990s the world was introduced to an amazing mineralogical event; stibnites were unearthed in China that rivaled the ones from Japan. These Chinese stibnite specimens actually exceeded them in quality and condition.

Very few were found on matrix and it is these few that remain as the most exceptional stibnites on earth. This is one of those stibnites; sharp long gleaming metallic "sword-like" crystals growing from a sparkling druzy quartz with the rare addition of tabular clear white barite crystals. A magnificent gift from the earth.