Galena (beautiful ''hoppered'' crystal)

Item Description

The famed Septemvri Mine (9th of September Mine) in the Madan Ore Field of Bulgaria is world-renowned for producing excellent crystallized display specimens of well-known sulfide minerals, like Galena. While the Galena crystals from this mine are typically cubic in habit, occasionally you will find some gorgeous skeletal or "hoppered" crystals, which have a distinctive and beautiful appearance. This piece features excellent, classic, sharp, metallic, lustrous, silvery colored, well-formed cubes measuring up to 2.2 cm on edge, but one of them is notably "hoppered" with an open / cavernous interior showing repeating striated lines of cubic crystal growth. The Galena crystals are sitting on a matrix composed of Quartz, Pyrite and black Sphalerite. The piece displays wonderfully as you can see from the photos, and it is in great shape overall. No major damage that I can see, though one of the smaller secondary Galena cubes does have a contact on one of the corners, but you don't really see it until you look closely. Sulfides to me can feature some of the finest examples of euhedral crystal form in the mineral world, and when you find a piece with such a cool skeletal crystal like this, it makes the piece all the more enticing.