Description
Detailed Description
This is a unique specimen among this lot (and I have not seen another one like it). Most of the piece is comprised of a very thin plate of crystalline acanthite – it has an appearance as though it could be acanthite after a leaf of silver – it is irregular and shows the texture of crystalline acanthite. Across the top of this plate are perched beautiful groups of lustrous acanthite crystals (pseudomorphs after argentite). Very bright and sharp.
About These Acanthites
Well-crystallized acanthite has never been common and most of the known localities for crystals are historic, making it difficult, and usually expensive, to obtain fine specimens. The finds at Imiter (Africa’s largest silver mine) in recent years have placed it among the world’s best localities for crystallized acanthite. Although these crystals formed as argentite, argentite is not stable below 179C, at which point it changes to monoclinic acanthite. The specimens are acanthite pseudomorphs after argentite, retaining the isometric crystal form of the original argentite crystals. I assembled this lot of acanthites over a period of about two years. Most of these specimens, from the 2008 find, remained in Morocco until 2013.
