Copper (''Spinel''-twins)

Item Description

An impressive, large and showy Copper specimen dating back to the mid 2000s. It's truly a stellar example featuring a "floater" crystallized plate with many "Spinel"-twinned Copper crystals flaring out of the edges. The twins are very fun to view up close with beautiful somewhat skeletal form. No damage anywhere that I can see. Rarely does one encounter specimens of this size from the Chino Mine with such attractive crystallization. Specimen weight is 360 grams. Valued $1,800.
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.