Ferberite with Muscovite (ex David Burgess Collection)

Item Description

A very attractive near full cabinet sized display specimen featuring a predominant, fairly thick, sharp, well-formed, striated, jet-black, bladed crystal with a classic 'chisel'-shaped termination which is surrounded by additional smaller Ferberites and coated by somewhat translucent golden colored Muscovite. The main crystal is complete on the front and back, though some of the secondary crystals are contacted, so the entire piece is not 100% pristine. The piece does sit on its own without the aid of a base or clay, but it does lean a bit forward. Overall, the quality is good, and the main crystal is in superb condition with only one small nick that I can see on the top front edge. When it comes to crystallized Ferberite, Panasqueira produced some of the most impressive and attractive specimens extant, and one rarely sees crystals of this size on the market today. This is not a 'black rock', but rather a fine crystallized example of a species that although is well-known, is rarely seen in fine quality, sharp examples like this from any world locality. Valued in the inventory at $900. From the worldwide collection of David Burgess (1951-2016). David was a prolific species collector from Newington, Connecticut, and the namesake for the extremely rare cobalt arsenate species Burgessite, which he discovered.