When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.
I'm pleased to offer this large and fantastic Mimetite specimen from the San Rafael mine, Gabbs, Nye County, Nevada. The specimen measures 5.17 x 3.56 x 2.22 inches or 13.12 x 9.03 x 5.64cm and is in excellent condition.
This was collected by Erich Laskowski (1950-2019) of Tucson, Arizona when he lived in California and worked at the Hayden Hill (gold) mine. He worked as a geologist in Colorado, California, and Arizona (chronologically) and collected wherever and whenever possible. He amassed a huge collection of personally collected ore specimens and obscure non-ore specimens. I was able to acquire the bulk of this collection in April, 2021 and I'm still going through and unwrapping specimens from his collection. He had a few flats of San Rafael mine pieces in the collection and this is no doubt the finest San Rafael piece and one of the few macro SR pieces in the collection.
The San Rafael mine was worked largely for lead and silver and a bit of gold was produced as well. It saw its best and most productive days in the 1920s. It never was a very productive or profitable mine and is best known to collectors for its wealth of beautifully crystallized lead and arsenate minerals. Nearly 70 different species have been found within the underground workings and the mine has long been popular with micromounters.
This piece shows a large goethite matrix with the display face nearly covered with lovely yellow-green mimetite. There is very sparse mimetite and quartz on the backside. I took a slew of photos in the bright Arizona sunshine at about 100 degrees and my camera shut down and I did not get a photo of the backside--no matter, there is little of interest to be honest. This is a choice and fabulous specimen from this locality and I will add a photo of this piece to mindat.org--the world's most comprehensive mineralogical website. It will be found on the San Rafael mine locality page and the new owner might ask me to edit my description to include your name as being in your collection. Just a thought!
Please check my response and my other items.All specimens are carefully wrapped, come with complete and accurate labels and are quickly shipped. As always, your complete satisfaction is unconditionally guaranteedand I even offer FREE return shipping on any item that fails to satisfy for any reason---you can't go wrong. I'm reminded of the firm pledge printed on the old Foote Mineral Company mineral catalogs from more than a century ago,
"Quality of specimens is assured as we permit return of specimens at our expense." Thanks for looking!
I buy collections! Please contact me if you have a collection for sale or know of one that is available. I will pay a finder's fee to anyone that can point me to an eventual purchase!
