Polished Silver ore w/ Smaltite (old - rare) Belsky Coll.

Item Description

A visually striking, rich and rare, old-time combination silver ore specimen from Cobalt and the Howard Belsky Collection. Incredible spinel-twin silver crystal clusters are all rimmed by silvery-bright smaltite on this outstanding sliced and polished specimen. The intricate patterns are surreal. Smaltite is the arsenic-deficient variety of skutterudite and is quite uncommon worldwide. The isolation and sculptural quality of the crystals, to 2.3 cm, is exceptional in the beautifully contrasting, partially translucent, greenstone matrix. Crystallized silver and smaltite specimens are extremely rare from any worldwide locality and this is a superb, old-time example dating to circa 1900. 216 grams. This piece may be unique. Value???