Wurtzite (ex Franceso Bedogne Collection)

Item Description

Wurtzite is one of those rather simple sulfides that few people see in well crystallized specimens. The species was named for French chemist Charles Wurtz in the mid 1800s. The San Jose Mine (and various other mines in Bolivia) have produced some of the largest Wurtzite specimens extant. This mine is also the type locality for Wurtzite as well! This specimen consists of dozens of sharp, lustrous dark chocolate-brown crystals forming semi-"rosettes" measuring up to about 3 mm on matrix. The important aspect of this specimen is that these are actual crystals and not small massive "blebs". Please note that the label states it's from "Lipez", which is not a real locality for Wurtzite, but it ends up on a lot of labels for some reason. This is CLASSIC San Jose material, and dates back at least 20 years. From the worldwide collection of famed Italian mineral collector, field collector and author, Francesco Bedogne of Sondrio, Italy (Collection #1122). Bedogne wrote dozens of articles and several books about the mineralogy of Italian Alpine localities such as Val Bregaglia, Val Masino, Val Codera, Val Spluga, Valtellina and the famous Val Malenco. He was also the founder of the Valtellinese Mineralogical Institute.