Hemimorphite (excellent color and quality) (RARE locality)

Item Description

You might look at a blue Hemimorphite from China and automatically assume it's from the Wenshan Mine (in Yunnan Province), as there have been hundreds of pieces to come out over the last decade or so, but THIS piece is MUCH rarer, coming from the little-known Makeng Zn deposit in Guangdong, China. There was a small lot of these beautiful and fine quality specimens dating back to 2017, and we obtained many of the best ones on the ground in China. Unfortunately, there was no reliable information at the time about their origin until recently. Originally they were sold as coming from Chenzhou (Hunan Province), which was always a point of contention for me and I was skeptical about that locality info. We are now sure they are indeed from Guangdong, from what appears to be an isolated discovery. This piece is one of the very best in size range, for color and quality and it has a captivating, strong blue shade (caused presumably by copper content), but it's also CRYSTALLIZED, unlike virtually all of the pieces from Wenshan, which are essentially massive/amorphous Hemimorphite. This piece glows with color when backlit because the crystal groups are actually gemmy, ranking these among best of species for quality, color and crystallization. The piece is in very good condition, but the periphery is obviously a bit rough where the piece was removed from the pocket wall. There is also a saw mark on the back, but it doesn't take away from the displayability of the specimen. These were incredibly limited, so when you combine that with the overall quality of the specimen, if I had this one price on a shelf at a show for sale, it would be about $3,500 retail.