Galena (rare octahedral habit)

Item Description

A lovely miniature of this classic material from the Joplin Field in Missouri featuring, sharp, well-formed, metallic silvery-grey colored crystals of Galena with notably rare octahedral habits, measuring up to 2.4 cm, associated with minor iridescent Marcasite and no matrix. While many of the crystals from this area feature octahedral faces, they are typically small modifying faces on larger cubes, but the crystals on this piece are predominantly octahedral, which is certainly hard to find for Galena from any locality. There are some tiny cubic faces on the corners of some of the crystals for a nice touch. No damage that I can find, and the piece is quite showy/presentable. A great piece of this old material, which used to be fairly plentiful on the market, but it now notably hard to find by comparison.
From the collection of Colorado mining legend, Dave Bergman. Dave is now retired, but among other things, he was 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".