Pyrite

Item Description

The Rico District is well-known among Colorado collectors for producing some excellent Pyrite specimens. Most of the pieces you'll see are only labeled as coming from "Rico", as specific localities were not recorded for a vast number of the Pyrites that were collected. This piece features an intergrown group of well-formed, sharp, lustrous, soft golden colored metallic crystals of Pyrite measuring up to 2.3 cm with no matrix. There are some nicks and dings in a handful of spots, so the piece is not pristine, and there is a point of attachment on the back where it was connected to the pocket wall, but it's still a good representative example of these now hard to find specimens from southwestern Colorado. The piece was collected in the 1960s. 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".