Cerussite (GEM twin)

Item Description

A classic and fine quality GEM twinned Cerussite from the famous Tsumeb Mine. The piece is nearly colorless, with a very light golden / smoky hue. The crystal faces are notably sharp, lustrous and smooth, showing the classic reticulated / "snowflake" shape for which this mine is known. A tiny amount of roughness keeps it from being 100% perfect, but it's still very good quality and virtually water clear in areas. With the price of Tsumeb specimens rising daily, this is a great opportunity to snag a classic and showy thumbnail specimen from what is considered by most people to be the most prolific mineral locality in the world.
From the collection of Armon McPherson, a retired physicist, now living in New Mexico. Armon received his PhD from North Carolina State University in 1985, and worked at the laser laboratory at the University of Illinois at Circle Center. In the summer of 1997, Armon moved to the Argonne National Laboratory where he worked at the Advanced Photon Source, then the world’s largest synchrotron facility dedicated as an x-ray source. In 2001, he was asked to join a team at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque to conduct laser research for DARPA. Finally, staying within Sandia, he transferred to the Z Facility, the world’s most powerful x-ray facility. He retired in the spring of 2017. Armon's introduction to mineral collecting came in the 1980s during graduate school when he attended his first mineral show. He took up the hobby of faceting gems, and focused his early collection on gem crystals, and later transitioned into collecting non-gem species. We are proud to offer specimens from his worldwide mineral collection here for you.