Ludlockite

Item Description

This gorgeous and rich, relatively large example of ludlockite came from a single grapefruit-sized pocket in the Germanium Level of the Tsumeb Mine, in 1969. This specimen is said to be one of the finest surviving thumbnails...and most specimens are small and not nearly as rich as this one. This consists of a solid, durable, 1.9 x 1.7 x 1.4 cm cluster of hair-like copper-colored crystals of this rare lead-iron arsenate, found in this quality ONLY that one time in 1969. Brought out of the mining town by Ludlow Smith III, whose partner was Charles “Charlie” Locke Key (hence the name Lud-Lock-ite), in a single lump of ore primarily composed of chalcocite and tennantite, the specimen was brought to the British Museum and shown to curator Peter Embrey, where it was identified as a new species. All specimens such as this, came from that original find, through Charlie. This specimen ended up with Stuart Wilensky, who sold it to Marshall and Charlotte Sussman for their first Tsumeb collection (which contained drawers of aesthetic examples of the rare species) built in the 1990s. It later passed to Rob Lavinsky in the purchase of that Tsumeb collection, and Rob offered it as a first choice purchase to Alex Schauss and sold it to Alex in February of 2000 at Tucson - a nice circle of karma, that it returns to Rob (me) in Tucson of 2022 to find a new home. This is one of the richest thumbnails in existence, for the species. It is large, volumetric, and simply beautiful. I have watched this piece for 25 years of my life, and am honored to have it back. Jeff Scovil photo: published in Mineralogical Record, Refined Elegance: The Small Treasures of Mineralogy, November 2022. Valued $5000-10,000. You simply cannot find another of this magnitude on the market!