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ex. Dr. Edward David
Splendent, battleship gray, flattened, spinel twin, intergrown, crystals of galena on matrix, reach 4.0 cm across. these are augmented by a swath of black, splendent, sphalerite crystals, to 1.0 cm across. I must say that this plate of flattened galena crystals is truly amazing!
ex. Dr. Edward David
OK, we have all seen a number of galenas from the missouri mines, but even so folks, this is a particularly dramatic piece with great aesthetics! The cluster of galenas is displayed so nicely on this natural pedestal, its hard to believe its natural! A very showy, large, display specimen!
Modified cubes of Galena are always nice, but the stacked cubic growth, generously sprinkled with abundant chalcopyrites on faces to one side, makes this specimen an attractive and unique oddity. Also, it is a floater, complete all around!
Outstanding Galena specimen from the St. Joseph Lead District, Vibernum Trend, Missouri. This modified 3.9 cm cube has excellent luster and form, and it sits on a matrix of Dolomite and Chalcopyrite. You could not design a specimen with better aesthetics - and it is BETTER IN PERSON!
Sharp bright crystal showing second-generation epitaxial growth upon the faces. Locality piece
This specimen is from a small find made by the late Richard Barstow in the mid-1970s when he happened to, by luck, come across this mine as they were blasting and had broken into a pocket of incredible galenas which he was allowed to take away. All good specimens in modern collections, I am told , came from this serendipitous find. This piece was sold by him in 1980 and consists of a remarkably equant cuboctohedral crystal (with such development, this is the rarest crystal style from the place), with a more octohedral cuboctohedral crystal perched atop and peeking over, all perched on matrix! It is as fine a miniature as I could imagine from what I have seen, and is again for this particularly well developed crystal habit a notable piece. From the miiature/rarities suite of Lawrence Conklin, who exchanged it from the American Museum of Natural History.
ex. Charlie Key
Numerous SHARP crystals of matte-black, octahedral galena to 1.2 cm in length are nestled in a vug of massive galena. For a color contrast there are a few crystals of ivory colored dolomite to accent them. Octahedral crystals of galena from Tsumeb are particularly rare though for odd reasons ANY galena in crystallized form is extremely uncommon from this mine despite its overall production tonnage of galena ore. So, to get a really good galena, good enough to go with a display-quality Tsumeb collection, is harder than you might at first think!
ex. Charlie Key
Massive, dark gray, galena is the matrix for these crystals of lustrous, translucent, stony-beige crystals of smithsonite. The largest crystal is doubly terminated and measures a whopping 3.75 cm in length. The arrangement of smaller smithsonite crystals adjacent to the large one is quite pleasing to the eye. THIS IS A HUGE CRYSTAL for this particular habit, elongated and doubly-terminated, and thus overall quite significant I think. The crystal isREALLY FAT, and yet the whole thing is translucent.
ex. Carl Rumpff ex. Prince Stephan von Habsburg-Lothringen
A valid Prince Stefan rock from the mid 1800s! Not only that, but its a good one, with juicy little red pyrargyrites ensconced with sharp galenas in contrasting quartz! Prince Stefan was an Archduke of Austria an da highly regarded mineral collector.
Really odd, disc-shaped galena crystals to 1 inch surmount a nice knoll of bright pyrite, on this old classic. It is a fine specimen, complete all around, and actually quite attractive in person. This is old material from the 1940s-1960s, I am told.
ex. Marilyn Dodge
These wonderful intergrown Galenas are from a small, but very well known, locality in Ireland. The luster is very good, but what makes this such a great specimen are the dodecahedral modifications. Normally, the rhombal faces are square, with the hexagonal faces nowhere close to equilateral. Here, it is reversed! The hexagonal faces are virtually equilateral with the minor faces as perfect rectangles. This is such a great specimen for luster, aesthetics, and habit!
A sharp 9mm cube, hoppered throughout, perched on chalcopyrite! As my friend John Veevaert found out and reported in his show report elsewhere, "it was mentioned to me that these were actually found about 20 years ago and ignored until someone in Bulgaria figured out how to remove the encasing clay without damaging the delicate features of these remarkable specimens. They are just absolutely incredible and easily the most impressive new thing here at the show. ".
An exquisite cluster of all-hoppered galenas to 1.3cm, which reminds me of old Anasazi cliff-cities I have seen in photos. As my friend John Veevaert found out and reported in his show report elsewhere, "it was mentioned to me that these were actually found about 20 years ago and ignored until someone in Bulgaria figured out how to remove the encasing clay without damaging the delicate features of these remarkable specimens. They are just absolutely incredible and easily the most impressive new thing here at the show. ".
An exquisite cluster of all-hoppered galenas to 1.2cm, which reminds me of old Anasazi cliff-cities I have seen in photos.
Almost impossible to shoot for photos here, this is one of the two biggest single hoppered crystal specimens I have seen survive mining and prep, at 2.6 cm across on the major crystal, a little more as a cluster. It is AMAZING, in person...the 1 inch galena crystal is completely hollowed and the edges look like a freshly built steel building frame. They look carved and molded , not natural - but, they really aren't fakes ( I asked around, to be sure!).
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