Chalcocite

Unknown Owner

A proper Cornish classic from way down near Land's End. Cornwall has many well-known localities for superb Chalcocite crystals, some dating back centuries, but Geevor mine came onto the scene during the 1970s or 1980s. Its style, like that of the adjoining Levant mine, are perfect hexagonal platy crystals, sometimes stacked parallel and other times skewered by a prismatic crystal to make a 'nailhead'. This fine thumbnail specimen features a quite large (1.6 x 1.6 cm) and really well-defined hexagonal tabular crystal displaying nice twinning growth lines on one side. On the same side several other smaller hexagonal crystals are stacked in parallel and the start of a short prismatic crystal can be seen protruding at 90 degrees like a nailnead. On the other side of the main crystal, a rosette of upright but damaged platy crystals can be seen. A fine Cornish Chalcocite. Ex David Hardman collection, no. 978.