Leadhillite (rare)

Item Description

Leadhillite is a rare lead carbonate sulfate species, named after the historic Leadhills of Scotland, where it was first discovered. While the species is known from Tsumeb, good crystals are hard to find, and often what you'll see offered for sale are "chunks" or broken lamellar masses, without good definition. This piece is a wonderful thumbnail sized example featuring a few sharp, lustrous, euhedral crystal faces of a dark smoky grey hue, with little black crystals of an unknown species (possibly Melanotekite, based on comparisons to a few others I've seen, but they haven't been analyzed to know for certain). Keep in mind that most of the euhedral Leadhillite crystals you'll find are often micros, so to have a specimen of this size with clearly eye-visible crystals is significant. If you collect thumbnails, rarities or minerals of Tsumeb this is a great opportunity to pick up something for your collection that is rarely available on the market.
From the collection of Alex Neufeld (#AN0327), and originally part of the collection of Kay Robertson (#5199).