Cuprian Smithsonite - image 1
Cuprian Smithsonite - image 2
specimen video

Cuprian Smithsonite

Unknown Owner
The green, copper-rich variety of Smithsonite, known as Cuprian Smithsonite is rare worldwide and typically does not form obvious well-defined crystals, but more often botryoidal crusts, or finely crystallized layers. As such, its value is usually more heavily skewed towards its intensity, or perhaps more correctly its brightness or vividness of colour. Too dark a green, or too pale, and its attractiveness diminishes, but this miniature specimen from the famous Tsumeb mine in Namibia is just perfect with a rarely seen vibrancy. It is from the Weyand collection kept hidden in Tsumeb for generations.

Product details

Species
SmithsoniteAbout Smithsonite →
SizeMiniature
Dimensions4.0 x 3.0 x 3.3 cm
Added on09/03/2025
Locality
Namibia, Oshikoto Region, TsumebRegional guide →

Known provenance

DateCollectorAcquisition price
10/2025Unknown Owner$550.00
—Crystal ClassicsNot disclosed

Learn more

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.