Galkhaite - sharp cubic xls (rare Thallium sulfide)

Item Description

There are very few crystallized thallium-species! This is perhaps the most beautiful. Lustrous, gemmy, dark blood-red to metallic galkhaite cubes to 2-3 mm are richly scattered on a nicely contrasting gray, drusy quartz-covered matrix from the famous Getchell Mine of Nevada. Galkhaite is a very rare cesium, thallium, mercury sulfide with a few other metals thrown into the pot (see http://www.mindat.org/min-1643.html). This piece is probably from small finds in the 1970s stashed by the mine geologist and sold off in the late 1990s. They were found in a deep level of the mine and few were saved. NOT ON THE MARKET, except for that small lot. A piece like this, at Tucson around 1998-1999 when I myself had many of that pocket he saved, would have been priced around $1200-1500. they were not cheap then, and few have ever turned up again for sale since.