Legrandite

Pure speculation on my part, but the configuration of the crystals, and in particular the overlying paradamite crystals, may mean that this specimen came out in around 1975 from a collecting area in Palomes Oriente-San Carlos (‘Los Changos’, i.e. ‘the monkeys’, so called because you had to be agile like a monkey to work in there), as indicated on pp.74 & 80 of The Mineralogical Record article in the ‘Mexico II’ Supplement in Volume 34. San Carlos is a twisting, interwoven network of small ore pipes, developed for about 200 m along a band between 80 and 160 m depth; it was exhaustively exploited and as of 1977 its lowermost parts were flooded.

Ex Collection of Dr Werner Paar.

The piece is illustrated in Thomas Moore’s report on the 2017 Munich Show at p.342 of Volume 49 of The Mineralogical Record, where it is described as ‘exceptional’

Photos by László Kupi