Woodhouseite (collected by C. D. Woodhouse!)

Item Description

Woodhouseite is a rare calcium aluminum phosphate, and the calcium analogue of Svanbergite. It was originally discovered in 1937 at the Champion Mine in California, then in various localities around the world. This piece is not only significant due to the fact that it's from the type locality, but it was actually collected by C. D. Woodhouse himself! Charles D. Woodhouse was a mineralogist at the Univeristy of California, Santa Barbara and obviously the namesake for the species Woodhouseite. This specimen comes with a label from a dealership called The Crystal Lined Pocket in Santa Barbara cofirming that it was collected personally by Woodhouse. It features typical flesh-beige colored trigonal crystals measuring around 1 mm+ with sparkling luster and excellent sharp faces sitting on minor matrix. A great old time piece dating back around 80 years, and certainly a very rare opportunity to not only pick up a worthwhile specimen from the type locality, but the fact that it was collected by the man for whom the species would be named makes it all the better.