Cassiterite (GEMMY - rare locale) (ex Kay Robertson Collection)

Item Description

An incredibly hard to find specimen of crystallized Cassiterite from the Plateau Province of Nigeria. The piece is not only sharp with lustrous faces, but it's actually GEMMY (!) when backlit. I've only seen a handful of Nigerian Cassiterites, and they are typically dull and black, but this one shows a beautiful rich golden-brown hue, which is significant for the material. This is certainly an old specimen, as the relatively early catalogue number in Kay's collection dates it back to circa 1950s-1960s. The piece is in fairly good shape, but it's not complete all the way around. You can clearly see it does have euhedral, crystallized faces though, which is certainly noteworthy for the material. A small amount of broken associated Quartz can be seen on the piece as well. If you collect Cassiterite or odd locality specimens, don't miss out on this attractive and good quality large thumbnail. Ex Kay Robertson Collection (#2151). Kay is a prominent California collector, who specialized in European classics (see the article in the March-April, 2007 Mineralogical Record and the 50+ page article in the German Magazine "Mineralien Welt" November-December 2017).