Ferberite (multi-twinned group!)

Item Description

A very attractive and essentially unique, stacked/layered, multi-twinned crystal group of Ferberite from the renowned Tasna mine in southern Bolivia. The piece was mined at the beginning of 2009 which is encouraging because I have seen VERY little in the way of Ferberites from this mine in recent years. Ferberite was sometimes previously referred to as "Wolframite", which was supposed to be an intermediary species between Ferberite and Hubnerite, but has since been discredited. This piece features the classic, "butterfly" twinning of Ferberite along the a (100) face. The piece has an attractive blocky form, and is a wonderful example of how beautiful these specimens can get. Twinned crystals from Bolivia are becoming increasingly difficult to obtain in recent years as the price of Tungsten ore has driven the miners to throw nearly all the Ferberite into the crusher, causing thousands of specimens to be lost forever. These twins are definitely the most highly sought after crystal habit from this locality. The piece was somewhat difficult to photograph, and is better than the photos show.