Galkhaite - sharp cubic xls (rare thallium sulfide)

Item Description

There are very few crystallized thallium species! This is perhaps the most beautiful. Lustrous, dark blood-red to metallic galkhaite cubes to 4 mm are scattered on the gray, drusy quartz-covered matrix from the famous Getchell Mine of Nevada. The large cube and others are pristine, with a few others being bruised or dinged. Galkhaite is a very rare cesium, thallium, mercury sulfide with a few other metals thrown into the pot (see http://www.mindat.org/min-1643.html). This piece is probably from small finds in the 1970s stashed by the mine geologist and sold off in the late 1990s. They were found in a deep level of the mine and few were saved. NOT ON THE MARKET, except for that small lot. A piece like this, at Tucson around 1998-1999 when I myself had many of that pocket he saved, would have been priced around $500-600. They were not cheap then, and few have ever turned up again for sale since.