What a great and attractive, old-time specimen of Pseudomalachite from the Mashamba West Mine in the DRC: Good Pseudomalachite specimens with large botryoids like this are almost impossible to find today and are thought to have come out in the 1970s and a pocket in the early 1980s. This three-dimensional piece is comprised of several large, pleasingly mounded, two-tone green botryoids of Pseudomalachite, producing a very aesthetic piece. The sides of the piece show concentric layering of the Pseudomalachite one upon the other. Pseudomalachite is a phosphate, NOT a carbonate like Malachite, although they can look similar at first glance. Usually this material is a little bit darker, a little bit more smoothly rounded from this locality, exactly as you see here. And, it's very rare, and often misidentified or simply not recognized at all by those who are unfamiliar with it. However, in person, material from at least this locality has a subtly different color and texture than Malachite which also occurs here. This is a large, display-quality example of this relatively rare mineral, from one of the most important of localities for the species. The biggest and best, most intensely colored material has come from the Mashamba West Mine. The thickness is over 1 cm in places, and you can see this from the sides. A small dusting of malachite microcrystals rests atop some surfaces for color accent. It's an impressive display quality specimen. Roberts Minerals label (Ken Roberts handled a number of these when they came out in the latter production, and had exceptional taste in aesthetics for rarities!). This is a superb piece, of something most folks will never see in person.