Hessite with Quartz

Item Description

Hessite is a silver telluride and is one of the few Tellurium minerals in the famous Tintic District of Utah that was an important ore. The sawed thumbnail block of lustrous metallic lead-gray is mostly massive hessite with some microcrystalline faces and included Quartz. Good timing for this hessite specimen in auction. See the current 2024 Mineralogical Record article in Vol. 55, No. 2. Formerly in the Joe Cilen Collection #22, 815. Joe was a well-known New Jersey collector, who accumulated over 23,000 specimens. He passed away in 1997. Ex Chet Lemanski Collection No. 12565CL and acquired in 1999. Chet is a well-known New Jersey collector and has been a Board member and Vice President of the Franklin Mineral Museum. Hessite specimens from the Eureka Standard Mine are RARE and this is a very rich old example. The mine was organized in 1917 and was exhausted by 1940. We have not analysed this but the ore is well known, and Cilen is generally good on his metallic identifications.