Carborundum (man-made) Whitmore Coll.

Item Description

A fabulous and unique, old-time CABINET specimen of man-made carborundum (trademark name) or silicon carbide. Very light weight for its size, the splendet, black, hexagonal blades have super peacock-blue iridescence! The stunning large blade is 6.5 cm and looks like the world's best hematite blade! Patented by E.G. Acheson in 1893. He had helped Thomas Edison develop the incandescent light bulb in the 1880s! Carborundum has a crystal structure like that of diamond and is almost as hard. It is used as an abrasive for cutting, grinding, and polishing, as an antislip additive, and as a refractory. Ex Robert Whitmore Collection. We featured a similar Dennis Mullane Collection specimen at auction in 2010 and the OLD card with that piece indicated the piece was acquired at the factory in about 1900! We have no idea as to the value, but this is a UNIQUE, old, example of an inorganic compound and it even looks like a large world-class crystallized mineral specimen! It looks great from either side.