Smithsonite

Item Description

An excellent, lustrous, translucent and colorless botryoidal Smithsonite from Namibia, with classic style and a fine translucency combined with sparkle to the surface. This handsome small cabinet piece features a few dozen, wet looking translucent to gemmy essentially colorless, 1 cm, disc-like to not quite scalenohedral Smithsonite crystals that are so transparent in places you can see the brownish matrix through them that tends to impart a false tan hue to some of them. It is an unusual style fro Tsumeb, especially the wet luster. The piece is nicely composed and there is no damage except for some minor contacting at the extreme periphery and only in places. A significant departure from the Smithsonite norm for Tsumeb or anywhere, this style is unique to Berg Aukas - a town not far from Tsumeb. In the old days, Berg Aukas specimens entered the market through Tsumeb based dealers and shops, and were invariably mislabelled as Tsumeb.