Galena with Sphalerite, Fluorite and Calcite

Item Description

A lovely association specimen from an undetermined locality in the Cave-In-Rock Mining Sub-District of Southern Illinois featuring attractive, sharp, well-formed, silvery-grey metallic cubic crystals of Galena measuring up to 4.5 cm on edge, associated with and partially enveloped by dark brown crystals of Sphalerite measuring up to 1.2 cm across. The piece is highlighted by a few gemmy light purple colored cubes of Fluorite measuring up to 1.0 cm on edge, and the reverse side of the piece hosts a handful of gemmy, pale golden colored scalenohedral Calcite crystals measuring up to 1.4 cm. Overall, the piece is in good shape, though there are some contacted spots on the Sphalerite, and the Fluorites are not 100% complete, but good quality Galena specimens from this area are not terribly common, especially associated with Sphalerite, Fluorite and Calcite.
Ex George Loud Collection No. 2611 IL.10; 7914 George (born August 16, 1942) is a well-known mineral collector from Washington, DC and South Carolina respectively, and was a patent lawyer by trade for over 50 years. He assembled one of the great mineral collections in the U.S., comprising worldwide specimens, and in later years he sold the worldwide specimens to focus on minerals of the United States, specifically locality suites with an emphasis on amazing representation of species while still maintaining fine quality. The specimens remarkably range from micros to all the way up to large cabinets in size. We recently acquired most of his impressive 9000+ piece collection, and the VAST majority of these pieces will be offered here in the auctions, as we feel that everyone deserves and equal opportunity at acquiring these important, well-documented and fine quality specimens for their collections.
See: https://mineralogicalrecord.com/biographies_labels/george-loud for more information