Orpiment with Realgar (classic material)

Item Description

A classic old-time example (which dates back to 1972) of the famous Getchell Mine Orpiments. This attractive toenail sized piece features intense orange colored crystals measuring up to 7 mm with minor stark red Realgar on minor matrix from this famous mine Humboldt County, Nevada. There are some excellent, well-terminated crystals which look beautiful up close as they are somewhat gemmy and glow when backlit. Classic material, and much harder to find on the market now than they were 40+ years ago.
This piece comes from the personal collection of Colorado mining legend, Dave Bergman, the maternal grandfather of Brian Kosnar. Dave is now retired from mining, but he worked for decades in various mines underground in Colorado, as a miner, mechanic, engineer, shift boss and foreman. His biggest claim to fame is that he was the foreman and the primary person in charge of mining and specimen recovery at the Sweet Home Mine in Colorado in the 1970s alongside his son-in-law, Rich Kosnar. This project what was the FIRST ever operation for specimen recovery at this historic locality. A full-page photograph of Dave can be seen mining underground at the Sweet Home in on page 58 of Peter Bancroft's book "Gem and Crystal Treasures".