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Mineral Specimens with Copper
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5.0 x 2.8 x 1.3 cm. A classic, old-time copper specimen from the historic Phoenix Mine of Michigan’s Copper Country. This superb, two sided miniature is a sculptural arborescent cluster of very sharp copper crystals with a nice patina. Most of the crystals on this specimen are tetrahexahedrons, but his fine piece features at least one rare, 3 mm, dodecahedral crystal on the middle, left side of the cluster. Ex. Karl Warning Collection.
Superb, classic, elongated spinel twin - a perfect miniature of the classic habit from this extremely important copper locality! These are old specimens, no longer available on the market 4.5 x .8 x .7 cm
10.8 x 9.7 x 8.6 cm. A sculptural, two-sided cabinet specimen of a showy, well-placed and rich bed of sharp copper crystals with a nice patina associated with copper pseudomorphs after cuprite crystals and matrix. The dendritic, copper appendages are fascinating. This excellent piece is from the less well-known Dallas Shaft at Bisbee. Ex. Dave Stoudt Collection.
14.2 x 9.0 x 5.7 cm. This classic, cabinet-sized copper "skull" is one of the most unusual forms in the Mineral Kingdom and is from the Copper Country of Michigan. This fine piece dates to around 1900. Copper invaded a conglomerate bed and surrounded a large, rounded cobble. The cobble dissolves away, leaving the casted "skull" of the cobble. This very fine example has a bright, copper patina and looks like a shallow bowl or chalice. Ex. Richard Hauck Collection.
6.2 x 4.7 x 4.2 cm. A classic, old-time specimen from Michigan’s Copper Country. Copper in calcite pieces have always been one of the most sought after mineral species from this historic district. This superb piece features copper in calcite crystals on both sides of the gossan matrix, which is richly coated with two generations of epidote. The "A" side has a gorgeous cluster of glassy, transparent calcite crystals with super patina included copper. The two-parallel-growth crystals are doubly terminated and are 3.7 cm long. The calcite cluster on the "B" side also has gemmy and lustrous crystals and the matrix has a rich coating of the two generations of epidote. Another striking feature of this fine piece are the discrete micro copper crystals scattered about on both sides. Specimens of this quality probably date from around 1900 or earlier. Ex. John Ydren Collection.
1.7 x 1.6 x 1.1 cm. Here is a fine thumbnail specimen of the famous pseudomorphs of Copper after Aragonite from Corocoro. These floater specimens are well known from Bolivia for their great form and color, and this piece has the classic and unique form that has made these pieces some of the most well known and highly sought after pseudomorphs around. This specimen is a very fine example of this material.
13.1 x 8.8 x 5.8 cm. This appears at first blush to be a solid, sheety specimen of massive copper, but in fact, it is all crystallized. Look closely and you will see that it consists of thousands of massed, tiny, sharp little crystals. There are traces of cuprite on the surface here and there. A heavy specimen, and the great majority of it copper crystals, with only a small proportion of matrix. Ex. Mullane Collection.
6.1 x 2.7 x 1.8 cm. A very aesthetic, classic example of this elegant style of spinel-twinned copper, purchased in the 1970s. The splaying curvature of the piece is very unusual and graceful. Ex. Helmut Bruckner Collection.
8.7 x 3.7 x 3.5 cm. A unique, strange and showy modern mining artifact of copper cast after "mine timber." In this case, highly concentrated, copper-rich solutions circulated or dripped through mine tunnels encasing, dissolving and replacing the mine timber. You can easily see the rectangular shape of the timber on end and the layers in the timber. A unique piece of modern mining ephemera. The cast is from the Ray Mine of Arizona. Ex. Dave Stoudt Collection.
4.7 x 3.4 x 2.7 cm. A fine and uncommon pseudomorph from the Tsumeb Mine of malachite pseudomorphing copper plates. The way the pseudomorphs are 90 degrees or perpendicular to one another is beautiful. The pseudomorphs are on a crusty matrix of sparkly, bubbly, two-toned smithsonite.
4.0 x 3.7 x 2.1 cm. A superb, arborescent cluster of branching, elongated, spinel-twinned copper crystals from the Campbell Shaft at Bisbee. Iron or manganese oxide balls are attractively scattered on this aesthetic specimen from the 1930s and the Mullane Collection.
8.0 x 4.6 x 2.5 cm. An old-time, classic and showy combination specimen of hackly copper with a nice patina on very rich coverage of lustrous, sharp, wine-red cuprite crystals on a plate of quartz-rich matrix. This fine piece is from the historic and very interestingly named Ting Tang Mine of Cornwall. The Ting Tang Mine was an active mine from 1816-1865. Ex. John Ydren Collection.
4.5 x 0.9 x 0.6 cm. A finely-articulated, single large crystal of copper, from the Itauz mine in Russia. The mine is now not producing any more copper specimens of this style. It is hoped it will produce specimens of this quality again in the future, as the strip mine widens, but there is no assurance of this. These have taken their place amongst the best crystallized coppers from anywhere, over the past decade.
8.4 x 3.4 x 0.6 cm. “The Santa Rita is, perhaps, the most famous mine in Western America, for it was here that the techniques of copper mining were first developed in the Southwest.” So wrote Carey McWilliams in his 1949 book, “North From Mexico”. Here is a wonderfully crystallized, arborescent specimen of copper from this famous mine. Wonderfully aesthetic and crystallized from top to bottom.
This piece is so remarkable in my experience, I couldn't believe it at first...but here it is, just back from a trip to the cleaners. This specimen features razor-sharp, metallic octohedral crystals of cuprite to just over 1 cm in size, forming a knoll atop native copper. When I got it from Linck's collection, the piece was so dark it looked black, and lacked lustre, plus the copper was not visible and I had no idea it was underneath! Physical cleaning revealed a very nice metallic lustre and the dark red color underneath 100 years of accumulated dirt, though I doubt it was ever professionally cleaned since the day it was mined and certainly never looked this good (especially now that it is trimmed a bit, and sits on its own!). NOTE THAT this piece was not chemically cleaned as some cuprites are these days! The red color shown is natural (dark red in the upper photos taken with a white-light bulb; and a brighter red with internal glints under a strong and close halogen light source). The piece is crystallized almost all around, though admittedly with some damage around the backside and contacted massive cuprite lower on the piece where I removed some rather clunky and broken parts of the matrix that really detracted. It is even minutely crystallized on the bottom; perhaps indicating that the whole specimen broke off and fell into the pocket, where further crystallization occurred over the break point? Given the hefty weight of the piece, this wouldn't surprise me if my guess were true. The native copper is visible as copper sheets underneath the specimen and around the lower periphery, admixed with massive cuprite. The specimen was in the notable collection of Albert Petereit, who apparently started selling his specimens in 1909. Quite a few of the best American classics in the Gage collection, including this one and the Pulsifer piece above, came from Petereit, who was well known on the East Coast as a connoisseur of American minerals. 6.5 x 5 x 5 cm
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Rob Lavinsky, rob@irocks.com
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share specimen![Copper from Phoenix Mine, Phoenix, Keweenaw Co., Michigan, USA [db_pics/mdpics/MD-208798a.jpg]](db_pics/mdpics/MD-208798a.jpg)
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