Galena ps. after Pyromorphite

The Kautenbach mine near the town of Traben-Trarbach in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany, is famous for its extraordinary pseudomorphs of Galena after Pyromorphite, known locally as Galena varieties “Blaubleierz” and “Plumbeine”. This wonderful miniature comes with an old handwritten label in copperplate script and is a compound tight cluster of pseudomorphed Pyromorphite of light battleship-grey with a matt to semi-metallic lustre. The pseudomorphed crystals range from about 1 to 2.2 cm across, forming sharply defined hexagonal prismatic crystals with flat, simple pinacoids. There is no alignment to the former Pyromorphite crystals, as different crystals sit adjacent to one another rotated by up to 90 degrees. The base of the specimen reveals pale banana-yellow, semi-opaque Pyromorphite as a polycrystalline glassy core. A magnificent and historic pseudomorph of Galena after pyromorphite from the Kautenbach mine.