An intensely grape-juice purple amathyst cluster from the famous finds of 1991, a find which combined the famous color of the locality with both size AND lustre. Most pockets had 1 or 2 of these qualities, but not all three in the same specimen. Still to this day, this is remembered as one of the best pockets ever from the locale, and I would argue it ranks among the best pockets of amethyst, period. The piece is complete all around, showing wonderful 3-dimensionality in volume; except only for a few small contacts and one unfortunate conchoidal chip on the lower part of the termination of the central (smallest) crystal among the vertical points. Nevertheless, it is elegant and dramatic overall, and quite fine as a display piece. The piece was purchased in 1991 by Hubert de Monmonier , after the find. It was never cleaned until I obtained in in an deal with the University of Arizona Museum, where his collection was bequeathed. Approx 210 grams. Formerly on display for several years in the Monmonier colleciton exhibition at UA.

This is a large and elegant silver specimen that reminds me of a bird leaping off from a rock. It is a complex nest of intergrown silver crystals of several habits, and is complete all around. It looks good from either side, and looks very sculptural (if less birdlike) standing upright. Large Batopilas silvers are a thing of the past, and rarely turn up. Matrix pieces, where the crystals have been carefully preserved as you see here, even more rarely still. Most specimens were collected and than boiled in acid to dissolve the calcite away and reveal silver wires and nests of wires. They were sold cheaply at the time (in several batches, most recently in the 1970s). This piece probably came out prior to that, though, I am told. It was also physically excavated from the surrounding calcite with minute tools and a lot of patience, and so the silver has its natural patina whereas most are burned bright and shiny.The calcite has a natural look instead of the melted look, sometimes seen in calcite-associated material from the more modern finds (still many decades ago!). Joe Budd photos

It is highly unusual to get silver-copper halfbreeds, as they call them from the old days. In this case the metals, separated in solution, anneal during formation and grow into one another without actually intermixing. I have seen the occasional nugget of part silver and part copper in rounded forms. But this crystallized example shocked me when I first saw it. The contrast is so bright and sharp, and the combination so dualistic, that my first thought was that it had been subjected to a partial cleaning and was in fact all copper or all silver. Unusual, and surely old material from a private collection. Joe Budd photos

This unusual specimen is uniquely aesthetic in my experience. It is a ring, or loop, of native copper (both crystals and massive copper), on which sit little "apples" of silver - rounded crystals of silver, perched in amongst the copper "branches" as they rise. I admit it looks fake at first but here you have it : at the top of the copper loop, right where the two sides would come together, a crystallized rosette of silver crystals is perched. That cluster is 3.4 cm tall and has crystals to 2 cm within it, shooting out from a common core. To continue the tree analogy, its like an orchid sprouting from the crook of a tree. The piece is just bizarrely sculptural, dramatic, and interesting. I have never seen a combo quite like it. From an old collection we got into, recently. Comes with custom lucite base. Joe Budd photos

Bewitching and graceful, this arborescent specimen of wire Silver on a complex and rich Silver base has aesthetics in spades. The picture says it all, really. A fabulous specimen, one of my favorites though I am more a fluorite collector than anything else - and my only major silver that ever floored me enough to purchase. This was from an early find here in 2007. For sheer elegance, it is hard to beat in this size range and anything similar from Germany or Peru costs more, anyways. Photo by Joe Budd

One of three aesthetic silver "rope" specimens obtained from an oldtime miner, from this classic locality that is now closed and gone forever. It was one of those funny stories in mining that you hear about and cannot believe - they actually mined this silver from an islet in the Great Lakes, while pumping water out, that is now long since closed and flooded. Verifiable Silver Islet specimens are few and far between. These three wires all have lovely form and an excellent, attractive patina.

One of three aesthetic silver "rope" specimens obtained from an oldtime miner, from this classic locality that is now closed and gone forever. It was one of those funny stories in mining that you hear about and cannot believe - they actually mined this silver from an islet in the Great Lakes, while pumping water out, that is now long since closed and flooded. Verifiable Silver Islet specimens are few and far between. These three wires all have lovely form and an excellent, attractive patina.

One of three aesthetic silver "rope" specimens obtained from an oldtime miner, from this classic locality that is now closed and gone forever. It was one of those funny stories in mining that you hear about and cannot believe - they actually mined this silver from an islet in the Great Lakes, while pumping water out, that is now long since closed and flooded. Verifiable Silver Islet specimens are few and far between. These three wires all have lovely form and an excellent, attractive patina.