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

CUPRIAN Smithsonite

$2,000.00

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Crystal Classics
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Tucson, Arizona, USA
7,543 for sale·132 sold
This really unusual Tsumeb mine Smithsonite is not only a lovely peppermint green colour, but has an intriguing form too. It is a thin cast after an unknown mineral and the Smithsonite is not only copper-rich, or cuprian, but has occasional tiny pale emerald green Dioptase inclusions. Its overall shape I liken to a slug. Several old collection labels accompany the specimen, one of which notes that it is ex Ed David and possibily ex Smithsonian. It is a very strange Smithsonite, whose form is most similar to the famous Dolomite casts seen from Tsumeb, so perhaps the carbonate geochemistry shifted from magnesium and iron to zinc-rich.

Product details

Species
SmithsoniteAbout Smithsonite →
SizeCabinet
Dimensions15.0 x 6.5 x 3.0 cm
Listed on02/12/2025
Locality
Namibia, Oshikoto Region, TsumebRegional guide →
SKUCC15853

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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.