Wurtzite (excellent locality specimen)

Item Description

An impressive, big cabinet sized display specimen of Wurtzite from Butte. Wurtzite is not a rare mineral, but it's certainly rarely seen from the Butte District, especially in such eye-catching big showy examples such as this. The Wurtzites have formed attractive "rosette"-shaped aggregates, which is a rare habit for the species, but distinctive from Butte, with groups measurings up to about 1.3 cm across. According to the label they have a slight coating of Chalcopyrite, and are sitting on a matrix composed of lustrous modified Pyrite crystals and Quartz. No major damage, except for the peripheral edges where the piece was removed from the pocket wall. I can't remember having a larger specimen of this material to offer, though we've only had a select few over the years. The added value of the specimen lies in the fact that it once belonged to the legendary Dr. Frederick Pough, the great mineralogist and curator of physical geology and mineralogy at the American Museum of Natural History in New York.
For reference, the specimen was originally priced at $2,500 nearly 20 years ago, and I would certainly put it at a higher value today ($5,000 +) considering the size, quality and rarity on the market.
Ex George Loud Collection No. 8246; 2621 MT.7. George (born August 16, 1942) is a well-known mineral collector from Washington, DC and South Carolina respectively, and was a patent lawyer by trade for over 50 years. He assembled one of the great mineral collections in the U.S., comprising worldwide specimens, and in later years he sold the worldwide specimens to focus on minerals of the United States, specifically locality suites with an emphasis on amazing representation of species while still maintaining fine quality. The specimens remarkably range from micros to all the way up to large cabinets in size. We recently acquired most of his impressive 9000+ piece collection, and the VAST majority of these pieces will be offered here in the auctions, as we feel that everyone deserves and equal opportunity at acquiring these important, well-documented and fine quality specimens for their collections.
See: https://mineralogicalrecord.com/biographies_labels/george-loud for more information