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  • A charming pyromorphite specimen featuring barrel-shaped crystals with vibrant grass-green color contrasting against salmon-pink matrix. The 4 cm specimen from Germany's historic Erzgebirge region displays excellent crystal formation, aesthetic clustering, and represents a fine example of this lesser-known Saxon locality.
  • A charming pyromorphite specimen featuring barrel-shaped crystals with vibrant grass-green color contrasting against salmon-pink matrix. The 4 cm specimen from Germany's historic Erzgebirge region displays excellent crystal formation, aesthetic clustering, and represents a fine example of this lesser-known Saxon locality.
  • A charming pyromorphite specimen featuring barrel-shaped crystals with vibrant grass-green color contrasting against salmon-pink matrix. The 4 cm specimen from Germany's historic Erzgebirge region displays excellent crystal formation, aesthetic clustering, and represents a fine example of this lesser-known Saxon locality.
  • A charming pyromorphite specimen featuring barrel-shaped crystals with vibrant grass-green color contrasting against salmon-pink matrix. The 4 cm specimen from Germany's historic Erzgebirge region displays excellent crystal formation, aesthetic clustering, and represents a fine example of this lesser-known Saxon locality.
  • A charming pyromorphite specimen featuring barrel-shaped crystals with vibrant grass-green color contrasting against salmon-pink matrix. The 4 cm specimen from Germany's historic Erzgebirge region displays excellent crystal formation, aesthetic clustering, and represents a fine example of this lesser-known Saxon locality.
  • A charming pyromorphite specimen featuring barrel-shaped crystals with vibrant grass-green color contrasting against salmon-pink matrix. The 4 cm specimen from Germany's historic Erzgebirge region displays excellent crystal formation, aesthetic clustering, and represents a fine example of this lesser-known Saxon locality.

PYROMORPHITE

Holy Trinity Mine, Zschopau, Erzgebirgskreis, Saxony, Germany
5 x 4.2 x 2.5 cm
$150.00
$150.00
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ABOUT THE SPECIMEN

Pyromorphite is one of the many desirable minerals that were mined in the Erzgebirge region of Saxony, Germany. While pyromorphite from the other side of the country in Bad Ems is more well-known, these eastern German pieces are beautiful in their own right - especially when considering that they were some of the first specimens ever identified! This cute miniature consists of grass green barrel-shaped crystals protruding out of matrix in a nice bundle. Great specimen that will make a great addition to a suite of worldwide pyro's or German/Erzgebirge minerals.

 

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MORE INFO

The Heilige Dreifaltigkeit ("Holy Trinity") mine sits southeast of Chemnitz in the Erzgebirge and is most probably the type locality for pyromorphite - a status consistent with its extraordinary specimen history. It appears to be the only mine in the world where pyromorphite was specifically mined for collector purposes: in 1808 a miner broke specimens from old workings on behalf of the Freiberg mineral dealership, and between 1834 and 1835 - long after lead ore extraction had ceased - larger quantities were systematically recovered by a mineral merchant from the Maßner shaft. Crystals occur as dark green to grass-green prismatic, sometimes barrel-shaped, to acicular individuals, occasionally with a yellowish-brown tint, typically reaching a few mm though crystals to 1 cm have been found, predominantly on baryte matrix - a combination that prompted early collectors, including Müller, to treat specimens with acid to clean and enhance them. A rarer chromian variety carries trace chromium oxide in the phosphate structure, shifting the color strongly toward red or orange-red. The galena pseudomorphs after pyromorphite that Zschopau is additionally famous for - "Blaubleierz" - document a rejuvenation event in which re-introduced sulfide fluids replaced the secondary phosphate back to galena while perfectly preserving the pyromorphite crystal form. All material is old-stock by definition, with the finest pieces in European museum collections predating systematic mineralogical description of the species.