Wittichenite

$4,500.00

$40.00 shipping
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Ships from USA

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Tucson, Arizona, USA

7,543 for sale·132 sold

Wittichenite is a rare copper bismuth sulphide known to occur in sharp microcrystals at several places, including several mines in the Freiburg Region, Baden-Württemberg, Germany, where the species was originally described during the 1850s. However, "microcrystals" is very much the key word. In 1981, a small batch of what were initially believed to be Chalcocite crystals were collected at the Cattle Grid Deposit, Mount Gunson mine, Pernatty Lagoon, South Australia, but it took several decades for their true identify as the world's best Wittichenite crystals to be realized, and even for them to be released to the mineralogical world. The crystals were almost always loose, off-matrix individuals, saved from the crusher. The story is documented extremely well by Robert Noble in the Mineralogical Record (Vol. 44, no. 2, 2013). This 1.9 x 1.8 x 0.9 cm single crystal found its way into the superb systematic collection assembled by the brothers Martin and Michael Günther (1951-2007 & 1956-2021). It does show a small conchoidally fractured tip at one end, but it is nevertheless a highly significant Wittichenite crystal with great development of complex crystal faces and fine growth lines.