Metacinnabar (excellent) ex Parnau & Urban Coll.

Item Description

Metacinnabar is a rare mercury ore worldwide. Lustrous, complexly rounded, intergrown, dark gray metacinnabar crystal clusters to 5 mm richly cover the quartz-rich matrix plate from the famous Mt. Diablo Mine of California. This is a fine example of this rare species, from perhaps its most classic old US locality as far as actual display-quality specimens go. Primary production was in the 1870s, with the last in 1930. A few were collected in the 1960s by field collectors poking around the old site, with none since of any quality I know of. Ex John Parnau and Joe Urban Collections.