Rheniite (rare - Type Locality) ex Fersman Museum

Item Description

A fascinating rare species, Rheniite is one of the few Rhenium-dominant CRYSTALLIZED minerals and is RARE worldwide. This miniature is from the Type Locality volcano in Far-Eastern Russia. It occurs at a volcanic vent in this remote area and scientists have to climb down into hot crevasses to find the stuff. A 1.5 cm vug hosts numerous silvery bright rheniite microcrystals and there are more tiny crystals scattered on the blocky volcanic matrix. Brought out of Russia in the late 1990s, I have not seen many for sale since. These usually sell for $500-1000, when they turn up on the market again. Ex Fersman Museum of Moscow. I know this because I bought it myself from Dmitriy Belakovskiy there, back in the 1990s, after material was collected on a museum expedition.