Botryogen (rare)

Item Description

An attractive display specimen of this rare material from the Santa Elena Mine in Argentina featuring rather sharp, well-formed, prismatic distinct crystals of the hydrated magnesium iron sulfate Botryogen measuring up to 1.3 cm long on matrix. The surface of the crystals is a light yellow hue, but underneath, there are areas of richer red-orange Botryogen, and I feel like perhaps the crystals on the top/display side of the piece could be coated or possibly altered to Copiapite(?). It's rare to find specimen with such fine, isolated, well-formed crystals free-standing like this, and this is certainly one of the better examples of this material that we've had to offer in the auctions in quite a while.
From the collection of Kurt Hefendehl (#5 AR), a well-known German collector all over Europe with worldwide contacts to dealers and collectors. He started collecting seriously at the age of 14 and his great and varied worldwide collection reached over 6000 pieces. He was very active mineralogically until shortly before his passing in 2020 at the age of 82. Considering his collection had a large number of pieces, it still had an unusually high standard of quality from most worldwide localities. He particularly specialized in all classics as well as minerals of the Black Forest, where he spent much time collecting. His Black Forest and German subcollections went to his good friend Wolfgang Wendel. We at The Arkenstone have the privilege of offering the remainder of this great worldwide collection through our various platforms.