Bournonite with Quartz

Bournonite with Quartz from Herodsfoot mine at Lanreath in Cornwall is a true British classic and this impressive specimen is enhanced even more by its accompanying Bryce M. Wright label.  Bournonite is a lead-copper-antimony sulphosalt and famously occurred in Herodsfoot mine between 1850 and 1875 as splendid cogwheel habit crystals, almost always associated with Quartz crystals and drusy Quartz.  See Roy Starkey’s excellent article on this mine in the Mineralogical Record, Vol. 43, No.4.  This small cabinet specimen has a lozenge-shaped Quartz matrix richly covered in silvery-black Bournonite crystals, most displaying good cogwheel habit and typically up to 1.5 cm long, mixed with stubby equant milky Quartz crystals and patches of drusy milky Quartz.  The Bryce McMurdo Wright label carries the address 36 Great Russell Street, indicating this is Bryce Wright senior who lived between 1814 and 1874, a mineral dealer who supplied the British Museum’s growing collection.  Rather confusingly, his son has the exact same name!  A splendid and very fairly-priced specimen of Bournonite from Herodsfoot, from the Dr Josef Clemente Collection of southern Germany.