Name: Franklinite with Zincite (circa late 1800s)
Brand: The Arkenstone
Price: 7500 USD
Availability: InStock

Franklinite with Zincite (circa late 1800s)

Free shipping
Seller offers an extended return window of up to 30 days
Ships from Not specified

An exceptionally dramatic and very well crystallized piece of intergrown franklinite and zincite from the Franklin Mine in New Jersey. While each can be found alone, finding a large display quality matrix specimen showing intergrowth and crystals of each is exceedingly rare. This is therefore a significant piece for this important old location, featuring at least two dozen submetallic charcoal gray Franklinite octahedrons to almost 2 cm on edge associated with a pair of dark crimson CRYSTALS of zincite that measure 4 and 3.2 cm! The size and degree of crystallization of these zincites varies with the largest super-sharp (4 cm) and the other a bit rounded. Zincite usually forms anhedral to subhedral crystals or veinlets in the franklin ores, very rarely as nearly euhedral, freestanding crystals like these. Again, we might point out that those freestanding crystals usually occur in massive rock and massive ugly matrix, not on beautiful franklinites. Both the franklinite and zincite crystals are pretty well isolated in this assorted cluster of incredible crystals for both species. As the previous owner pointed out to me, we've never seen a cluster like this! It absolutely dates to older workings in the late 1800s to early 1900s and comes from several old German collections including Dr. HJ Wilke. Most recently, from the important collection of aesthetic rare species assembled over 50 years by well-known Mannheim collector Paul Stahl. This was among his first picks when the Wilke collection came up for sale.