Chalcopyrite with Pyrite

Item Description

This is a well-composed and well balanced Chalcopyrite piece from China, where fine chalcopyrite is rare! The Yaogangxian Mine in China has produced numerous well crystallized specimens of many mineral species and somehow it produces very few good copper minerals such as chalcopyrite - although specimens from other locations such as this are often wrongly ascribed to Yaogangxian. Rather, this style of rich, primarily chalcopyrite in specimen form is from another location in Jiangxi Province; and material from this mine (both fluorites very similar to Yaogangxian style; and sulfides) often got mixed into the sales channels of the more busy and famous dealers in Chenzhou and Changsha, in Hunan. So while the previous owner attributed this to Yaogangxian, I have corrected it based on other information. The piece consists of two, stacked, intergrown clusters of large, brassy yellow Chalcopyrite crystals to 3 cm! The crystals are large and sharply formed tetrahedral crystals. The base of the piece also hosts numerous Chalcopyrite crystals around and between the two columns, from 0.3 to 1.5 cm across, in association with mirror-bright, golden, blocky pyrite crystals to 1 cm. The matrix of the piece shows through in a few places and consists of sugary, off-white Quartz and Calcite with some disseminated sulfides. It is gorgeous and 3-dimensional, and is a significant Chinese chalcopyrite likely from the 1990s or early 2000s. Similar specimens with larger crystals, but less luster, were later found here in 2005 or so (we have one for sale on iRocks.com #CHINA122-13, for comparison).