Smithsonite on Sphalerite (uncommon combo) Trimingham Coll.

Item Description

The Berg Aukas Mine of Namibia has produced world class smithsonites, as well as the world's finest descloizite specimens. This is a showy, rich and rare combination piece. Sphalerite is very rare from here, even though this was a Zn-Pb-V mine. The display face is densely and attractively covered with very sharp, lustrous, translucent, yellow-brown, smithsonite scalenohedrons to about 1.7. These crystals lie over an earlier generation of lavender smithsonite. The matrix is coarsely crystalline rubyjack sphalerite. In excellent shape overall, with just one dinged tip in the interior and a modest bit of periphery wear. Rare, excellent and highly representative combination material from this very well-known locale. Ex Bob Trimingham Collection. Older material, probably from the 1960s or 1970s, as the mine closed in 1978.