Tennantite (fine crystals) on Quartz (classic material)

Item Description

It's quite rare for one to encounter of these gorgeous and fine quality specimens on the market anymore. Simply put, they are some of the finest examples of crystallized Tennantite from any world locality. This impressive large cabinet sized "mound" is composed of milky white hexagonal Quartz crystals with an almost "sugary" appearance on their surface which play host to many excellent, beautiful, well-formed, modified (trapezohedron / tetrahedron / dodecahedron) crystals of Tennantite measuring up to 1.6 cm across. Now some of the Tennantites are contacted, so the piece isn't 100% damage free, but the majority of the crystals are beautifully crystallized, including the main crystal with its superb smooth faces and steel-grey "gun metal" luster. Tennantite isn't a rare species, per se, I suppose you could call it uncommon, but if you think about all of the silver / copper deposits in North America, and how many of them have reported Tennantite, I think you could say that the specimens from the El Cobre Mine are the finest from not only North America, but the Western Hemisphere. The two most significant attributes of this specimen are the wealth of superb quality crystals and the fact that the piece is not only robust and three-dimensional, but it displays beautifully as you can see from the photos. If you collect copper species, or minerals of the Tennantite-Tetrahedrite series, or just superb pieces from Mexico, don't miss out on this one. We had this piece priced in the inventory at $3,750. The specimen in accompanied by a small label from Benjy Kuehling's Columbine Mineral Shop in Ouray, Colorado. Benjy bought this specimen (along with several other pieces from this limited discovery) from Rich Kosnar in the early 1970s.