Hubnerite with Quartz and sulfides (ex Richard A. Kosnar Collection)

Item Description

The Sweet Home Mine is best known for producing arguably the finest Rhodochrosite crystals in the world, but one thing that it does not get credit for is the quality of its Hubnerites. Most people are probably familiar with the large bronze colored Hubnerites from the Adams Mine in the San Juan Mountains, but those crystals are opaque and rarely truly red in color. The best Hubnerites from the Sweet Home Mine are actually GEMMY (similar quality to the famous crystals from the Huayllapon Mine in Peru) and show a deep blood red color when backlit. This piece for all intents and purposes is more of a reference specimen of Hubnerite, as the crystals are mostly opaque and black, but with strong backlighting, you can see a bit of red color peeking through here and there. The largest Hubnerite prism on the piece measures 1.1 cm long, and they are associated with thin "needle" Quartz along with Chalcopyrite, Pyrite, Galena and Sphalerite. If you flip the specimen over, there are actually some small lilac Fluorite cubes. A really cool old time specimen of this hard to find material from the Sweet Home. This piece was part of the collection of Richard A. Kosnar, the namesake for the species Kosnarite, who operated the Sweet Home Mine in the 1970s specifically to collect specimens. This particular piece was personally collected in 1978 by Dave Bergman (Rich Kosnar's father-in-law), who is a Colorado miner. Dave was the foreman and primary person in charge of recovering specimens at the Sweet Home Mine for Rich years ago. See Dave's photo mining at the Sweet Home on page 58 of Peter Bancroft's book "Gem and Crystal Treasures".