Baryte on Skutterudite (Smaltite) ex. Pearse & Harvard Museum

Item Description

Intriguing and uncommon, this combination piece is from the Annaberg District in Saxony. The matrix appears to be, and certainly feels like, nearly solid Skutterudite, with the surface being dominated by dozens of golden, gemmy, 4-5 mm Baryte crystals. The slender Baryte prisms have good luster and excellent, chisel-point terminations. The undulations in the surface reveal glassy, gemmy, and stout Quartz crystals. (Mixed throughout are thousands of purplish-pink microspheres of what I believe is the rare arsenate, Cobaltkoritnigite or maybe erythrite.) This distinctive locality piece was in the Pearse and Harvard collections, and in the early 60's became #3203 in Kay's collection.