Sphalerite with Tetrahedrite (uncommon for the locality)

Item Description

Here we have a fairly hard to find matrix display specimen of Sphalerite with Tetrahedrite from the famous old Georg Mine. This piece hosts many highly lustrous, fine quality, sharp crystal groups measuring up to 1.0 cm across, which might look dark on the surface, but when viewed with backlighting, they show vivid warm hues ranging from golden to deep amber. The Tetrahedrite crystals are small (about 1 - 2 mm) and feature excellent crystal morphology with smooth, lustrous, metallic gray faces. The matrix is coated by compressed golden rhombic crystals of Siderite, which shimmer in the light. Although Sphalerite is not a rare species, it's hard to find such an eye-catching example from the Georg Mine. Valued $800. This ancient iron mine was abandoned in 1965, so this piece is at least 60 years old, and could date back well over 100 years. This piece comes with a beautiful old hand-written label from an unknown owner, along with another equally attractive hand-written label from the collection of W. Maucher of Munich (for reference, the Dipl. Ing. title on Maucher's label stands for Diplom-Ingenieur (which is German equivalent of a MS {Master of Science} degree).
From the collection of Kurt Hefendehl (#435 D), 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 for the foreseeable future through our various platforms.