Albite (rare for the locality)

Item Description

The famed Morro Velho Mine in Brazil is well-known for its beautiful Siderite specimens, showing distinctive golden-green hues, and they are often found with a handful of associated minerals, including Dolomite, Cubanite and Pyrrhotite, but THIS piece is a notably rare example that features a 3.2 cm, group of fairly gemmy, white/colorless, thick bladed crystals of ALBITE as its focal point, sitting atop a matrix of the aforementioned golden-green Siderite and white/colorless Dolomite, with a sprinkling of metallic dark bronze colored Pyrrhotite crystals and thin blades or sometimes "needles" of coppery-bronze colored Cubanite. It is not common to find Cubanite crystals from any locality in Brazil, but Morro Velho is an oddball locale, as it's primarily a gold mine (mindat.org states that it is the, "world's oldest continually producing gold mine, started in 1725"). As mentioned, the main focus of this piece are the excellent Albite crystals, which even appear to show a bit of twinning (polysynthetic or otherwise). This is a rare one folks, I know that Albite isn't a rare mineral, but you'd be hard-pressed to find another one anywhere for sale, especially with such great aesthetics! It's impossible to determine a fair market value for a piece like this, all I will say is that if you want it, don't let it get away. From the collection of William ("Bill") (1927-2006) and Anne (1928-2021) Cook of Cleveland, Ohio (#7525). This husband and wife duo were actively involved in the mineral world for many decades. Bill was a PhD geologist, and Anne was a mathematician, and they both were very serious mineral collectors. Bill served for many years as adjunct curator of mineralogy at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, and Anne was inducted into the Micromounters' Hall of Fame on October 12, 2019. Both Bill and Anne, at various times, served as president both of the Mineralogical Society of Cleveland and of the Micromineral Society of the Cleveland Museum