Magnetite (superb large specimen)

Item Description

Magnetite is one of those minerals that everybody knows, but few people have good crystallized representations in their collections. In the early 2000s, various localities around Cerro Huañaquino in southern Bolivia started producing some of the finest specimens of octahedral Magnetite ever found. The combination of the supreme quality crystals and excellent display specimens immediately put them in the upper ranks for the species. This piece is a superb cabinet sized display piece loaded with razor-sharp, rather lustrous, incredibly well-formed, dark metallic black colored octahedral crystals of Magnetite (some of which are twinned) measuring up to 1.1 cm are scattered all over the underlying matrix. Tiny pale beige colored Feldspar crystals can be seen underneath the Magnetites for a wonderful contrast of color. One of the fine aspects of this specimen is that the Magnetite crystals are well-spaced, and not tightly intergrown, so you can see clear separation between each crystal. A lot of the Magnetites from this area are "packed" together, so you can't see individual crystals, but that's not the case with this piece. Virtually every crystal is undamaged, I can see a few broken crystals, but the piece is in remarkably fine condition. Keep in mind that the majority of these pieces were badly damaged, so when you find a piece of this size and quality, it's truly remarkable. If you missed out on these years ago, this is a tremendous chance to get a top notch example of these now elusive specimens (I'm told that all of the prospects have been mined out) for your collection. You would be hard-pressed to find another piece of this size and caliber on the market today, so if you've always wanted one of these specimens, or if you're just a fan of superb crystallized examples of well-known species, don't pass this one up. For those of you who are familiar with the old time Swiss Magnetites from the Binntal, those pieces are considered the finest and most valuable examples of the species in the world, so if this piece were from Switzerland, the value would be extraordinary. With that said, this piece was still priced at $3,000 in our inventory.