Cobaltite (rare classic material)

Item Description

Certainly, some of the finest examples of Cobaltite are those from a few classic localities in Sweden where serious mining dates back a few centuries. According to the entry on mindat.org, the mines around Tunaberg closed circa 1890, so this piece is easily 130+ years old! These excellent Cobalt crystals have been known for generations, and their superior size and quality makes them among the standards for the species. This piece is a wonderful matrix specimen (which are not terribly easy to find, as a good number of the Cobaltite crystals tend to "pop" out of the matrix) featuring not one but TWO sharp, well-formed, silvery metallic crystals with excellent, smooth, well-formed faces measuring up to 1.2 cm across, on brassy Chalcopyrite on matrix. It's rare enough to find one crystal on matrix, but a pair of crystals is a big deal in my experience with this material. The crystals are in very good shape, though a bit of roughness can be seen, so it's not 100% pristine. A very showy and good quality example of these well-known yet fairly elusive specimens from one of the most well-known localities for the species.
From the collection of Kurt Hefendehl (#2 SW), a well-known German collector all over Europe with worldwide contacts to dealers and collectors. He started collecting seriously at the age of 14 and his great and varied worldwide collection reached over 6000 pieces. He was very active mineralogically until shortly before his passing in 2020 at the age of 82. Considering his collection had a large number of pieces, it still had an unusually high standard of quality from most worldwide localities. He particularly specialized in all classics as well as minerals of the Black Forest, where he spent much time collecting. His Black Forest and German subcollections went to his good friend Wolfgang Wendel. We at The Arkenstone have the privilege of offering the remainder of this great worldwide collection through our various platforms.