Hemimorphite (RARE locality specimen)

Item Description

Here we have an impressive, large, old-time, classic and frankly rare cabinet size piece from the site of the first United States lead mining "rush" in the 1820s in the Upper Mississippi Valley Lead District. This is by far the best and largest example of Hemimorphite that we've had to offer from the locality. A large and showy vug in sculptural matrix is fully lined with spherical aggregates composed of lustrous, rather lustrous, bladed, golden-brown Hemimorphite crystals. This fine, large, historic specimen certainly dates to the late 1800s or early 1900s, at the latest, and pieces of this size, quality and caliber are simply non-existent on the market. Formerly in the collections of E.R. Chadburn, Northeastern University, Phil Scalisi and George Feist Collection # 2279. The specimen is listed as "calamine" on the Chadburn label. Calamine is an early name that was actually used for a few different zinc minerals, i.e., Smithsonite, Hydrozincite and Hemimorphite. Valued $2,000.
Ex George Loud Collection No. 423 WI.1; 9004 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