Ferberite (multi-twinned group)

Item Description

Ferberite is an iron tungstate mineral, and not often found in fine crystallized examples outside of a few world localities. I can say honestly without fear of contradiction that the finest twinned Ferberite crystals in the world come from the Tazna Mine in Bolivia. This small cabinet piece is a good quality example featuring classic, "butterfly" twinned crystals of Ferberite showing twinning along the a (100) face. There are actually multiple twins on the piece, as you can see the bladed crystal repeating the twinning habit when you look down one direction, and there's even a smaller "baby" twin flaring off the side. A small spherical group of brass colored Marcasite can be seen on the piece as well for a nice touch. The overall quality of the piece is good as the piece has well-defined, sharp faces, moderate luster and the classic jet-black color. I must stress that there are some areas of damage on the crystals, the piece is not perfect, so please keep this in mind when bidding. Twinned crystals from Bolivia have becoming increasingly difficult to obtain in recent years as the price of tungsten ore has driven the miners to throw all the Ferberite into the crusher, causing thousands of specimens to be lost forever. These twinned crystals are definitely the most highly sought after habit from this locality, and are unlike the specimens from well known localities such as Panasqueira, Portugal and Yaogangxian, China, which are just single blades. You don't see many pieces like this one from Tazna, so if you're in the market for a twinned Ferberite, don't miss out as these are few and far between. It should be noted that Ferberite was sometimes previously referred to as "Wolframite", which was supposed to be an intermediary species between Ferberite and Hubnerite, but has since been discredited. Priced in the inventory at $600.