Chalcocite (fine crystals) (ex Dan Behnke Collection)

Item Description

There are a few localities around the world for really attractive, fine quality, well-crystallized Chalcocite specimens, but many of them are old historic locales, and haven't produced specimens in many decades. When the Flambeau Mine started producing pieces during the mid 1990s, it really bolstered the supply of fine crystallized pieces for collectors. The locality is finished and although these pieces were well-known and fairly easy to find on the market 20+ years ago, they are incredibly hard to find today. This piece is a very attractive small cabinet featuring some excellent quality, razor-sharp, well-formed, pseudo-hexagonal (monoclinic) blades of Chalcocite with a steel-grey hue, sitting on what appears to be botryoidal Goethite with a "peacock" colored patina on the surface (likely a small coating of Bornite) which shows flashes of metallic purple, blue and pink. The largest Chalcocite crystal measures 4 mm across, so they're not huge, but they are FINE QUALITY to be sure. You typically don't see small isolated textbook crystals like this from Flambeau, and this would be a great piece to add to a sulfide suite, a collection of Midwest minerals or simply fine crystallized (albeit small) mineral specimens. From the collection of Daniel (Dan) W. Behnke (July 31, 1932 - January 20, 2020) of Glenview, Illinois. Dan was an Associate Photographer of both the Mineralogical Record and Rock and Minerals magazines. He served as the Micromount chairman of the Midwest Federation of Mineralogical Societies from 1981 to 1988. He was elected to the National Board of Directors of the Friends of Mineralogy in 1989, and the Micromounters Hall of Fame in 2007. He was a beloved member of the mineral collecting community, most notably for his supreme skill at photomicrography. If you've ever seen any of Dan's micro photos on mindat.org, it's easy to see why he was one of the best in this field. You can read his obituary at https://www.nhscotthanekamp.com/obituaries/Daniel-W-Behnke?obId=10633628