Gold Ore (ex David Burgess Collection)

Item Description

A curious piece of gold ore labeled as coming from the "Simmer & Jack Mine Tchmerinza, Republic of So. Africa". I don't know if a specific mine can be attributed to this specimen, as it could be from any locality belonging to the former Simmer & Jack Gold Mining Co. Ltd (later changed to Simmer and Jack Mines Ltd after 1924). This mining company was found in 1887 by the German August Simmer and Scotsman John Jack, who not too long after founding the company, sold the majority shareholding to Gold Fields of South Africa Ltd. By 1935 Simmer & Jack had processed 27,000,000 tons of rock and extracted 7.8 million ounces of gold for a gross profit of £10 million. The original mine was finished in 1969. Until 2013, you could find the company was listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange. With that said, the specimen features a massive chunk of grey Quartz which is speckled with tiny bits of bright yellow gold throughout. The piece weighs 39.3 grams, though the actual gold weight is negligible in my estimation. A cool an unusual piece that dates back certainly at least 50 years, and possibly over 100. From the worldwide collection of David Burgess (1951-2016) David was a prolific species collector from Newington, Connecticut, and the namesake for the extremely rare cobalt arsenate species Burgessite, which he discovered.