FMF - Friends of Minerals Forum, discussion and message board

[Paul]

Just wanted to share this specimen, found it literally at the bottom of a box, unfortunately the collection was not very well looked after by the previous owner.

It still needs to be cleaned up.

The Specimen is 75mm x 62mm x 36mm

The Primary Crystal is 11mm, but is buried deep inside the pocket, the largest crystal that can be seen easily is 7mm, no damage to any crystals.

[Debbie Woolf]

Hello Paul

It looks like a very nice Dioptase, not sure if the white mineral is Calcite or the rare Minrecordite ? Pictures are to dark as not enough light getting to the specimen to reflect the crystal faces & true colours, can't confirm if Tsumeb though at this point, if it is an 11mm sized crystal is a good size. Tsumeb Dioptase is highly sought after.

It would be well worth investing in a close up lens & a filter lens if taking pictures outside & software to adjust pictures.

Other possibilities are you could join the club in Jo'berg & contact the university to see if they can help identify, they may do this for free.

Good specimens from an unknown collector could be a gold mine :0) Sorry pun intended seeing as you are in that territory !

[Paul]

Hi Debbie

The white mineral is most likely Minrecordite but still needs to be confirmed, this specimen comes from the same collection as many of the other Tsumeb specimens I've posted.

The collection is indeed a goldmine and goes back more than 50 years, there are close to 1,500 specimens in the collection some very common and some very rare, the collection originally belonged to David Wall, the founding chairman of the South African Mineral Collectors Association.

The Collection was "lost" for the past 10 years or so and I was recently lucky to discover it at a "Yard sale" of sorts, the owner was moving house and was literally ready to chuck it all away, I actually bought the entire collection by weight.

The collection was very badly looked after and many specimens have been badly damaged, and to make matters worse Dave Wall kept meticulous records but most of the specimens are no longer tagged, I am now slowly identifying specimens and matching them up with the records.

[Debbie Woolf]

Hi Paul

Thanks for the info, thank goodness you found them !!! How exciting too !!

Please send me an email to

debbie.woolfatbtinternetdotcom
(name at server dot com)

The anti spam filter does not allow the usual email address/way.