Updated 4d ago
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Hematite (SPECULARITE) with Quartz$2,000.00
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Florence mine near Egremont is one of the most famous of the West Cumbrian iron mines, partly because it was the last to close, but mainly, from a mineralogical perspective, because of the wonderful mineral specimens it produced up until the 1990s. The West Cumbrian iron mining district is one of the few places in the world where razor-sharp bladed Hematite crystals, known as Specularite, or Specular Hematite are found, and Florence mine was one of the best occurrences. Usually, the Specularite occurs as a later overgrowth encrusting botryoidal or layered Hematite, sometimes in very large plate-like specimens. Quartz, sometimes Smoky, is a common associate. This small cabinet specimen from Florence mine is quite distinctive in its form, and this is presumably why it was retained by Bill Creighton in his own collection (no. 106) - Bill was, of course, the owner of a shop and museum in Cockermouth in the northern Lake District (Cumbria) frequented by collectors during visits to the Lake District. Rather than forming a flat plate, with a single coating of Specularite, this small cabinet specimen comprises a thin base of massive Hematite from which rise large (to 4.9 cm in length) blade-like masses of compact Specular Hematite which are themselves encrusted with small (generally 3 to 4 mm) razor-sharp glossy black Specularite crystals. The larger 'blades' protrude at different angles and orientations in a delicate arrangement with glassy colourless squat pyramidal terminated Quartz crystals interspersed with the Specular Hematite on the base. A highly distinctive and unusual Specularite from Florence mine. Its date of collection is not recorded on Bill Creighton's label, but it is likely to be from the 1980s or 1990s.
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