Pearceite with Stilbite (ex Franceso Bedogne Collection)

Item Description

Pearceite is a rare and highly sought after silver copper antimony arsenic sulfosalt. Good crystals are just beautiful as they have a gorgeous hexagonal / trigonal form with brilliant metallic iridsecent faces. This piece is from an unlikely locality for the species, the Sarbaiskoe Mine in Kazakhstan. This locality is best known for its beautiful wire Silver specimens and rich orange colored Stellerites, and I've only seen a few Pearceites from this locality over the years. The majority of the good specimens came out during the 1990s, and it's my understanding that nothing is coming out now. This piece features a few eye-catching, razor-sharp, lustrous, metallic iridescent crystals of Pearceite measuring up to 4 mm with a rare association of yellow Stilbite (or possibly Stellerite) on matrix. Great quality when viewed up close, and how often does one find a sulfosalt associated with a Zeolite like this? From the worldwide collection of famed Italian mineral collector, field collector and author, Francesco Bedogne of Sondrio, Italy (Collection #934) and comes with a few other dealer labels. Bedogne wrote dozens of articles and several books about the mineralogy of Italian Alpine localities such as Val Bregaglia, Val Masino, Val Codera, Val Spluga, Valtellina and the famous Val Malenco. He was also the founder of the Valtellinese Mineralogical Institute.