Pearceite

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Pearceite is one of the four so-called "ruby silvers", Pearceite, Pyrargyrite, Proustite and Miargyrite, discovered in 1896 and named for Dr Richard Pearce (1837–1927), a Cornish–American chemist and metallurgist from Denver, Colorado. Going by my experience here at Crystal Classics and considering the number of each of these species which have passed through my hands, I would certainly say Pearceite is the rarer of the four. Chemically it is the most complex of the four Cu(Ag,Cu)6Ag9As2S and in this specimens forms well developed, metallic silver-black crystals with snow white Calcite on a metallic bronze speckled matrix. This is an excellent miniature of this rare silver sulphosalt.