Siderite with Albite and Pyrrhotite on Dolomite

Item Description

You don't think of this locality as a gold mine because it's best known for its Siderite / Dolomite specimens, but I would like to point out that the entry on mindat.org states the Morro Velho Mine is, "the world's oldest continually producing gold mine, started in 1725". This attractive small cabinet sized specimen is a showy representation of this beautiful material featuring many compressed, translucent, stepped, rhombic crystals of Siderite measuring up to 2.5 cm with that classic greenish-golden hue sitting atop translucent rhombic colorless Dolomite crystals. There is a group of fine quality, rather gemmy, colorless Albite crystals on the piece, along with small metallic bronze colored Pyrrhotites sprinkled about. The piece is in decent shape overall, but it's not 100% pristine, as there are a few imperfections here and there. It's still a great combo speicmens and presents well as you can see from the video and photos. The specimen was collected in the early to mid 1970s.
From the collection of William ("Bill") (1927-2006) and Anne (1928-2021) Cook of Cleveland, Ohio (#1287) accompanied by an old Hansen Mineral label and a label from and unknown collection. This husband and wife duo were actively involved in the mineral world for many decades. Bill was a PhD geologist, and Anne was a mathematician, and they both were very serious mineral collectors. Bill served for many years as adjunct curator of mineralogy at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, and Anne was inducted into the Micromounters' Hall of Fame on October 12, 2019. Both Bill and Anne, at various times, served as president both of the Mineralogical Society of Cleveland and of the Micromineral Society of the Cleveland Museum of Natural History. The rare barium lithium beryllium phosphate Wilancookite was named in their honor in 2015.