Cuprite (rare historic locality specimen) (ex David Burgess Collection)

Item Description

A remarkably hard to find specimen of Cuprite from the famous old Levant Mine in Cornwall, England. We've only had a select few specimens of this material to offer in the auctions, and you can't find them anywhere on the market, they only exist in old collections. This attractive small cabinet piece is filled with micro cubic crystals of Cuprite of a deep reddish-black metallic hue, but if you look closely, there are also small groups consisting of acicular bright red "needles" of Chalcotrichite (a fibrous variety of Cuprite) as well. The specimen is best seen under magnification, and we've photographed this piece with a Canon MP-E 65 mm macro lens to better illustrate the quality. From the worldwide collection of David Burgess (1951-2016), with an accompanying label from noted rarities dealer, Josef Vajdak. David was a prolific species collector from Newington, Connecticut, and the namesake for the extremely rare cobalt arsenate species Burgessite, which he discovered.