Smithsonite (Cobalt-bearing)

Item Description

The illustrious Tsumeb Mine produced a wide variety of Smithsonite specimens, with various chromophores that can create dazzling colors ranging from green to yellow to orange to pink with plenty of other in between. Certainly a good number of the most enticing and attractive cobalt-bearing Smithsonite specimens ever found are those from Tsumeb. This piece is filled with beautiful, vitreous, compressed, fine pink color cobalt-bearing Smithsonite crystals measuring up to 4 mm, sitting on matrix. The crystals are distinct, and look very attractive up close. Good quality and very eye-catching, with no real damage that I can find on the display side. I love the color and style of the crystals on this one, very eye-catching in person. As you all know, Tsumeb minerals are not only highly sought after, but their value seems to increase daily on the market, as this mine is considered by many to be the greatest mineral locality in history.
From the collection of Armon McPherson, a retired physicist, now living in New Mexico. Armon received his PhD from North Carolina State University in 1985, and worked at the laser laboratory at the University of Illinois at Circle Center. In the summer of 1997, Armon moved to the Argonne National Laboratory where he worked at the Advanced Photon Source, then the world’s largest synchrotron facility dedicated as an x-ray source. In 2001, he was asked to join a team at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque to conduct laser research for DARPA. Finally, staying within Sandia, he transferred to the Z Facility, the world’s most powerful x-ray facility. He retired in the spring of 2017. Armon's introduction to mineral collecting came in the 1980s during graduate school when he attended his first mineral show. He took up the hobby of faceting gems, and focused his early collection on gem crystals, and later transitioned into collecting non-gem species. We are proud to offer specimens from his worldwide mineral collection here for you.