Galena

Item Description

The Sweetwater Mine is famous producing some world-class Galena specimens in its day, and they are certainly among the most aesthetic and highly displayable specimens of the species from any US locality. This classic small cabinet / large miniature sized piece hosts a group of sharp, well-formed, metallic, silvery-grey colored cuboctahedral crystals of Galena which are sculpturally intergrown to create a showy, three-dimensional specimen. The largest Galena crystal measures 1.2 cm on edge. No major damage that I can find on the display side, though it's not complete on the periphery where the piece was separated from the pocket wall. Showy, fine quality and truly classic material. From the collection of legendary Colorado miner, Dave Bergman. Dave is now retired, but mined all over Colorado and was most famously the foreman and primary person in charge of recovering specimens at the famous Sweet Home Mine near Alma, Colorado during the late 1970s. He is also the maternal grandfather of Brian Kosnar. See Dave's photo mining at the Sweet Home on page 58 of Peter Bancroft's book "Gem and Crystal Treasures".