3
Euchroite (important US locale)
Specimens like this are what make mineral dealing fun and exciting - always the surprise! We got this directly from Bart Cannon on my last visit with him before he suffered a tragic accident and later passed away. Bart sold/traded me a very small selection of his top aesthetic American specimen, which he felt should be placed into other collections. Euchroite is a gorgeous rare species, best known in crystals from a few European localities - and those to 1 cm, would be considered large and important. However, this is a freak of nature, a total surprise, a jawdropper of a specimen from the USA! It shocked me when I first saw it. It is hard to believe that this thing even exists as it is SO much better not only than the Libethen (Slovakia) Euchroites, but also better by far than any other Montana piece I had ever seen (which was, let's admit, only a few crummy thumbnail specimens). It is a superb cluster of rich, almost "Dioptase green" crystals that have very good luster, and are translucent to opaque that fan out laterally and vertically and ar exquisitely set on a flat, rectangular sliver of matrix. The crystals are in roughly three, somewhat compressed, mostly two-dimensional groups, each composed of 3 to 7 mm two-toned, dark green, lustrous crystals and they look almost as good on the back as they do on the front! Such good characteristics like these are uncommon for Euchroite no matter what the size of the specimen; and this is a very fine, important example of this rare hydrated copper arsenate species, and it comes from the Copper Cliff Mine in Montana! We, and Bart, believed that this was the best USA example of the species and so I set it aside to show the Smithsonian with his blessing at the time - and then promptly lost it in my show unpacking chaos, for the last 7 years or so. Most of Bart's top pieces, he self-collected. Bart was a wonderful human, a brilliant collector; and also built his own analytical lab literally in his basement (including power sources). He was known for his expertise with analysis of all types, and his expertise in rare species. Most people simply do not realize how much the man field-collected - all over the Pacific Northwest and Montana, in particular. He was a prolific collector, but mostly kept the best things to show his friends and visitors in Seattle. This piece, he found in 1982 and kept until 2017. I have heard that the rest of the collection is pending a museum donation, including some smaller examples from this remarkable discovery he made. It is a fitting tribute for a legendary field collector that we can share some of his pieces here. Bart's obituary can be found here: https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/seattletimes/name/bart-cannon-obituary?id=14668802. As a note to pricing, we have so little for comparables. I value and price this the same as I have in the past for the few top tier examples of Libethen Euchroite we have seen/purchased/sold, even though truthfully, I value this more highly in my heart as a passionate collector of important location pieces.
Unknown Owner
Product details
Species
SizeMiniature
Dimensions4.2 x 3.6 x 0.7 cm
Locality
Copper Cliff Mine, Missoula Co., Montana, USA
Added on11/02/2025
Known provenance
2025/07
Unknown
$6,500.00—Species and Locality Wiki Pages
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