Ferberite on Arsenopyrite

Item Description

This piece is from the impressive Ferberite discovery in 2008 at the Tasna mine. It is a good small cabinet sized display specimen and a very hard to find matrix specimen to boot! The specimens from Tasna were sometimes previously referred to as "Wolframite", which was supposed to be an intermediary species between Ferberite and Hubnerite but has since been discredited. The piece features several sharp, lustrous, aesthetic, jet-black, tabular Ferberite crystals measuring up to 1.9 cm on hard to find, beautifully crystallized Arsenopyrite matrix. It is very rare to find good CRYSTALLIZED Arsenopyrite matrix when it comes to Ferberites from Tasna. A few minor spots of damage on the specimen is the only thing keeping this from being a perfect specimen, but the main crystals are essentially undamaged. For the overall appeal and dramatic impact of the piece, the damage does not detract. These Bolivian Ferberites are often underrated and stand up very well against any other Ferberites from China or Panasqueira. Keep in mind that less than 5% of all the Ferberites from the find of 2008 were on matrix because Ferberite is a hefty and brittle species, so the crystals rarely survive the blasts undergound and fall off the host rock.