Ramsdellite (rare Mn-oxide) David Burgess Coll.

Item Description

Equant, splendent, black, sub-metallic ramsdellite crystals to 8 mm across, which are large for the locale, form a rich and showy mounded miniature plate from this less well-known Arizona locale. Ramsdellite is an uncommon manganese oxide and some of the finest US examples come from here. Ramsdellite from this small and defunct mine in a remote corner of Arizona was first found, I am told, in the early 1900s. However, the locality was apparently lost for some time and only rediscovered by the father/son team of Roy Jones and Dick Jones in the 1960s. Some of this material came out then (Roy says about 6 flats). I have seen it turn up, from time to time, in old US collections. However, it has remained fairly rare on the market, and thus expensive. A recent find appeared literally in the middle of the Tucson Show and surprised me. It features very fine quality Ramsdellite crystals on manganese-rich matrix, and the crystals have excellent luster and jet-black color to them. There was an old MR article (Arizona-V, 1983) about the Mistake Mine, and also this is referenced in the Mineralogy of Arizona by Bideaux, et al. Ex David Burgess Collection, for whom Burgessite is named.