Cassiterite (twins) (classic material)

Item Description

Horní Slavkov (formerly Schlaggenwald) is a renowned historic locality in the Czech Republic. It is certainly one of the great old European localities, known for a large number of classic species, including iconic Cassiterite specimens. Here we have a fantastic and showy specimen filled with many excellent, sharp, well-formed, cyclic twins of Cassiterite measuring up to 1.6 cm across, on matrix. The crystals might look black on the surface, but with strong backlighting, a tiny bit of golden color can be seen inside. Virtually all of the crystals are damage-free, and the piece display quite nicely from a few angles. These important and historic Cassiterites date back centuries, and this particular one has a hand-written label attached to base that mentions the year 1837, so it could easily be close to 200 years old. A remarkable and very attractive example of these well-known, yet now very hard to find Cassiterites from a locality that dates back to the 13th century.