Bournonite

Item Description

Bournonite is an uncommon lead copper antimony sulfosalt species, named after the French mineralogist Jacques Louis, Comte de Bournon. Interestingly, Bournon elected to name the species Endellionite in honor of St Endellion, Cornwall, England, the type locality for the species, but it instead was named Bournonite by Scottish mineralogist Robert Jameson (Jamesonite). The species has been found in hundreds of world localities, but some of the finest contemporary specimens are those from the Machacamarca District in Bolivia. These specimens are some of the largest, finest and most crystalographically impressive examples to come out in the last 25 years or so. This piece is a showy and aesthetic example featuring a handful of sharp, lustrous, metallic, gun-metal colored, thick tabular crystals, free of matrix. The piece is crystallized all over, and is nearly a complete "floater", with no major damage anywhere that I can find. It's incredibly rare to find such a complete / undamaged Bournonite specimen from this area, especially a multi-crystal group like this. Very rare and significant for what it is. Don't miss out, it's one of the better Bournonites from Machacamarca that we've had to offer in the auctions in recent months.