Azurite (very rare locality specimen)

Item Description

An incredibly hard to find specimen of Azurite from the Durgy Mine which according to the entry on mindat.org states it was primarily a gold mine, with trace copper and silver minerals. This piece is the only specimen of Azurite we've ever seen from the locality and features attractive little stark blue colored "rosette"-esque aggregates measuring up to about 6 mm across, intermixed with white Quartz and very minor green Malachite on matrix. Perhaps not the prettiest Azurite in the world, but the rare locality certainly makes it incredibly desirable from this old locality that dates back to the early 1900s.
From the collection of Norman Kennedy ("Kenny") Gay (1953-2023), a geologist, geoscience educator and mineral collector from North Carolina. (#M29 E.1). Kenny worked for North Carolina Geological Survey starting 1995, and he was a member of the adjunct faculty at Wesleyan College, and a professor of geology since 2001. He assembled a large collection of worldwide minerals specimens, though he focused mainly on minerals of North Carolina. Kenny did substantial work documenting all of the significant mineral occurrences and mining/mineral collecting in North Carolina. He might be best associated with the Redmond Mine, where the rare extremely rare lead sulfate Kennygayite was discovered and named in his honor in 2022. Kenny was the first person to collect specimens at this locality, which lead Jason Smith to take an interest in this assemblage, and later name a mineral in Kenny's honor.