Cuprite (rare locality specimen)

Item Description

This is one of the few Cuprites we've ever had to offer from this locality. While Cuprite is not a rare species, it's quite difficult to obtain from the Chuquicamata Mine in Chile. The piece is filled with deep red metallic colored crystals of Cuprite measuring up to about 4 mm on matrix. The crystals are primarily cubic in habit, but I can see little dodecahedral and octahedral faces under magnification. When backlit, the crystals show good gemminess internally. We have photographed the piece with a Canon MP-E 65 mm macro lens to better illustrate the quality.
From the collection of John Dagenais (#JD-850), and originally from the collection of Lloyd Twaites of Vancouver, Canada.