Copper

Item Description

Here we have a beautiful and highly sculptural Copper specimen from the famed Sacramento Pit, which lies southeast of the town of Bisbee. This locality, according to the entry on mindat.org has been subsumed into the Lavender Pit, but back in its heyday (the 1920s), "several hundred thousand tons of ore were produced". Despite the incredible amount of material that was crushed and melted down, specimens do survive, and this piece is a fantastic and showy display specimen showing a wonderful combination of sharp, well-formed, defined, good-sized crystals of Copper, intermixed with flowing almost "wire"-like forms branching in several directions from the central crystals. The piece has a bit of embedded Calcite remaining in certain spots, and the beautiful surface patina gives it an antique appearance that is highly appreciated in this important, historic material. Certainly one of the better pieces of these classic Coppers that we've had to offer in the auctions in recent years. Valued $4,000.
Ex George Loud Collection No. 1114 AZ.10; 9514. George (born August 16, 1942) is a well-known mineral collector from Washington, DC and South Carolina respectively, and was a patent lawyer by trade for over 50 years. He assembled one of the great mineral collections in the U.S., comprising worldwide specimens, and in later years he sold the worldwide specimens to focus on minerals of the United States, specifically locality suites with an emphasis on amazing representation of species while still maintaining fine quality. The specimens remarkably range from micros to all the way up to large cabinets in size. We recently acquired most of his impressive 9000+ piece collection, and the VAST majority of these pieces will be offered here in the auctions, as we feel that everyone deserves and equal opportunity at acquiring these important, well-documented and fine quality specimens for their collections.
See: https://mineralogicalrecord.com/biographies_labels/george-loud for more information