Sphalerite with Quartz (rare locality specimen)

Item Description

An incredibly hard to find piece from the Silvermines District in Ireland, about 25 miles northeast of Limerick. Despite the fact that according to mindat.org, Silvermines is, "Arguably Ireland's most famous mineral locality, certainly it's most prolific", I'm fairly certain this is the only piece that we've ever had to offer where Sphalerite was the featured mineral (we've had several Galena specimens in the past, but not a primarily Sphalerite specimen). We can thank Richard Barstow for his efforts to acquire these specimens from local miners in the 1970s, otherwise very little from the Silvermines District would actually have been preserved. This piece features gorgeous little sparking crystals of gemmy, honey-golden colored Sphalerite, measuring to about 2 mm, associated with tan "rosettes" of Siderite and dark grey colored cuboctahedra of Galena, sitting on prismatic, gemmy, colorless Quartz crystals. The Sphalerites are beautiful when viewed under magnification. A really cool specimen for any fan of orebody minerals, worldwide Sphalerites or collectors interested in Silvermines material. From the collection of Kurt Hefendehl (#28 E), a well-known German collector all over Europe with worldwide contacts to dealers and collectors. He started collecting seriously at the age of 14 and his great and varied worldwide collection reached over 6000 pieces. He was very active mineralogically until shortly before his passing in 2020 at the age of 82. Considering his collection had a large number of pieces, it still had an unusually high standard of quality from most worldwide localities. He particularly specialized in all classics as well as minerals of the Black Forest, where he spent much time collecting. His Black Forest and German subcollections went to his good friend Wolfgang Wendel. We at The Arkenstone have the privilege of offering the remainder of this great worldwide collection over the next two to three years through our various platforms.