Mixed Minerals!

A great example of orange calcites on a sphalerite matrix, with minor fluorite. The main cluster and the smaller doubly terminated crystals immediately near it are perfect, only the one way off to the side has any tip issues. I could have trimmed it before posting, but decided to leave it as is.  

A beautiful example of a belemnite that has been replaced by water/ crystal opal, from the famous opal fields of South Australia. Belemnites were somewhat like today's cuttlefish and squid-- only they had an internal skeleton-- that is what was left behind, replaced by opal and fossilized. This one has been carefully prepared to expose the beautiful fossilized tube-- about 95% complete. 

A very beautiful example of octahedral galena with iridescent chalcopyrite, from recent discoveries in the Viburnum Trend District of eastern Missouri. Usually chalcopyrite is treated to yield the colorful "peacock ore," those these acquired their color naturally.  Although this piece doesn't have any calcite, I inspected a number of others that did-- the calcite would have been destroyed (or at the very least, the surfaces would have shown obvious signs of etching) had these been treated after extraction.   All in all, it's a very pretty combination of this usually dull mineral-- and I'd also point out that octahedrons are a bit less common than the standard cubes. 

A nice cluster of smoky quartz crystals on a pleasantly shaped, lightly concave matrix from Australia. A couple tiny chips present. 

A nice example of green tourmaline with feldspar, from Miners Gerais, Brazil. 

A salient octahedral pyrite crystal, nicely positioned on a pyrite matrix. Huanzala produces most of the pyrite you see for sale-- whether it's in a gift shop or a craft store.  Most of those are clusters of small dodecahedrons however, along with cubic crystals those are the most common forms.  Octahedrons, or "triangulos" as the locals call them, are considered the least common.  

A beautifully twinned, 0.82 ct diamond crystal, this one a somewhat rare "Star of David."The star shape is more apparent from some angles than others, I've tried to show it from the angle that conveys this most clearly, as well as the back (which also shows the twining quite well) and side. 

A pair of barite "snowballs" on a cluster of dark, reddish-brown sphalerite. Classic material from the Elmwood Mine, and rather well-balanced visually. 

An excellent example of strontianite from the Southern Illinois Fluorspar District. Along with the fluorites that this area is famous for, the mines in this district also produced exceptional examples of several rare (almost everywhere else) carbonates.   This piece consists of a pair of wheatsheaf-like clusters, with a tiny scrap of fluorite near the base. 

A very beautiful example of galena with iridescent chalcopyrite, from recent discoveries in the Viburnum Trend District of eastern Missouri. Usually chalcopyrite is treated to yield the colorful "peacock ore," those these acquired their color naturally.  Although this piece doesn't have any calcite, I inspected a number of others that did-- the calcite would have been destroyed (or at the very least, the surfaces would have shown obvious signs of etching) had these been treated after extraction.   This one has a matte gray crystal on the side of a matrix richly coated with vibrant chalcopyrite crystals. 

A floater cluster of dark purple fluorite crystals, under slightly stronger lighting (such as int he light box where I photographed it) the dark purple phantoms pop out. 

A large calcite-covered plate, with lightly iridescent hemispherical aggregates of dodecahedral pyrite crystals.  From a recent find. 

A spherical aggregate of blue azurite crystals, from the famous Bisbee copper mining area.  

A great thumbnail of brown fluorite from finds made over 15 years ago at Clay Center, Ohio.  This one features a sharp crystal with a light brown phantom, associated with minor celestite. 

A beautiful cluster of transparent quartz crystals, sprinkled with chalcopyrite and pyrite.  These  specimens were quite abundant in the 90's, though when Romania joined the EU many of the once-prolific mines closed.  This piece was brought back by Ross Lillie, though it doesn't have his label

A lustrous cluster of ilvaite crystals, from a center find at the Huanggang Mine.  Ilvaites were among the first species to come from this locality back around 2010, then they largely stopped coming out.  The ilvaite from here is undoubtedly the world's best, surpassing anything from the other locations that were particularly well known for the species, most notably Serifos and Dal'Negorsk.  This comes from an early 2022 pocket.  

A cluster of flattened copper crystals that looks kind of like a cat..... or the Pokemon mew. 

Although the Southern Illinois fluorspar district gets a lot of attention from collectors, there is also a Central Kentucky fluorspar district.  This piece is a doubly terminated crystal, and comes from a quarry just north of Lexington.  Clean contact on the back

A very three-dimensional example of this very distinctive, old American material. 

A very old specimen of galena, with a pair of cubes sharing their matrix with scattered crystals of "ruby jack" sphalerite.  Many of the mines in the area connected underground, even across state lines, and records were rarely kept as to which exact location they came from.  As such, I always label these "Tri-State District" unless I have a reliable old label-- and that is almost never the case.  

A beautiful cluster of quartz crystals, overgrown in places by manganocalcite, and associated with sphalerite.  These specimens were quite abundant in the 90's, though when Romania joined the EU many of the once-prolific mines closed.  This piece was brought back by Ross Lillie, though it doesn't have his label-- it does however have that clean, sharpness that the pieces he imported typically do.... there was just *so much* of this material available wholesale (kind of like Bulgarian minerals today) but there are still some specimens that lack the damage and random visual composition that the wholesale stuff always has....his selections always just seemed cleaner.   

A nice cluster of colorless fluorite with slightly frosted surfaces, on a sliver of matrix. This comes from Dal'Negorsk, near Russia's Pacific coast. 

A nice example of quartz from an old Pb-Cu-Zn mine in Colorado that closed in 1978. 

A nice example of a siderite epimorph of calcite, from a mine that has been intermittently worked since medieval times.  

A cluster of Cumberland habit quartz crystals from Cumberland, or rather Cumbria as the area was renamed in 1974. The piece had an old label that still said "Cumberland," so my guess is the piece predates the renaming/merger of those administrative regions.  The colors not quite as smoky in person.. its more of a gray.

A decently sized, polished half of a datolite nodule from Michigan's Upper Peninsula. The brownish color comes from minute copper inclusions-- actually, if you look at the rind you will see tiny green dots instead of brown ones; the same copper that has retained its brownish-red color inside the nodule has oxidized to green from exposure to the elements on the nodule's surface.

A large wulfenite crystal with a matte luster and a bit of matrix running through it. This piece has an old type-written "Kytes' Collections" label with a $4.00 price tag and a Virginia PO box listed... I would guess this piece dates to the 1970's.

A very good example of sphalerite from he Auglaize Quarry, this location is mainly known for its iridescent and purple phantom fluorites, as well as its calcite.   Sphalerite is one of the less frequently occurring minerals at this well known Midwestern locality. This one has a bit of shearing, but is exceptionally rich.  

A very old specimen of galena, consisting of a single, hefty crystal on a bit of matrix.  Many of the mines in the area connected underground, even across state lines, and records were rarely kept as to which exact location they came from.  As such, I always label these "Tri-State District" unless I have a reliable old label-- and that is almost never the case.