Cuprite with Silver (rare combo for Tsumeb)

Item Description

A cool association specimen from Tsumeb featuring attractive, well-formed, deep crimson colored crystals of Cuprite which measure up to 1.1 cm across, which are sitting on white Calcite, colored a stark green hue due to Malachite inclusions, but the most interesting aspect of the piece is the fact that a minor amount of Native Silver is present. It's one of the VERY few pieces I've seen from Tsumeb featuring Cuprite with Silver. Now the Silver is embedded in the matrix, and it's not terribly big or flashy, so we've done our best to illustrate it in the photos. It would be a good Cuprite specimen on its own merit, as the crystals are good-sized and good quality (showing good internal translucency when backlit), but the added rare association of Silver makes it all the more enticing.
This piece comes from the collection of John Dagenais (#JD-956), a collector from the Pacific Northwest. John started collecting in 1969 and progressed to micromounting, and later built suites of specimens from the Chuquicamata Mine in Chile, the Tsumeb Mine in Namibia, the Majuba Hill Mine in Nevada, the Black Pine Mine in Montana and the Tintic District in Utah, among other places. You can visit John's mindat profile at https://www.mindat.org/user-647.html.