Description
Detailed Description
A slender, elegant spray of bright lustrous metallic kermesite crystals. The crystals are a very dark red – the colour is seen upon close examination under good light. The crystals in this bundled group seem to terminate in somewhat fibous endings, where I suspect another mineral was, at one time. There are microcrystals of what I believe are valentinite perched on this kermesite crystal bundle. In excellent condition. This is a great specimen.
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About These Kermesites
These kermesite specimens are from the find of the best kermesite crystals known to date. The discovery was made in 2002, and the specimens were collected at that time. Unfortunately no specimens have been collected since, so it seems to have been a one-time find.
Kermesite specimens from the Caiwa Mine are now hard to obtain. These specimens are exceptional quality for this fragile mineral. They were selected from a small lot from 2002 that was made available this year.
The location for these kermesites has been controversial and has often been misrepresented. It is questionable whether some localities given over the years may have been deliberately misleading. The controversy has taken more than one turn. By 2008, the Caiwa Mine was the location agreed by two highly respected experts on Chinese minerals, Guanghua Liu and Bert Ottens, superseding information from 2007 and earlier. Tom Moore confirms this in his Compendium of Mineral Discoveries.
