HUTCHINSONITE with ORPIMENT and PYRITE

SPECIMEN DESCRIPTION

Thallium is an extremely rare chemical element and a notorious poison, but thankfully when combined with other elements, as compounds, it is safer. Thallium-bearing mineral species are equally rare, and crystallized specimens rarer still. Hutchinsonite, an extremely rare thallium lead arsenic sulphide, was first described from Lengenbach quarry in Switzerland in 1904 as very rare individual crystals. It took until the 1970s for a much richer source of Hutchinsonite to appear - that at Quiruvilca mine in Peru. Renowned for having produced some of the world's finest Orpiment crystals during the 1970s and 1980s, Quiruvilca mine also provided the world's best Hutchinsonite crystals too. Occasionally, old specimens come up through the recycling of collections and this is exactly the case here. This very large miniature was in the superb rare species collection of brothers Martin and Michael Günther (1951-2007 & 1956-2021). A fine-grained Pyrite matrix contains several cavities lined with orange-peel coloured Orpiment crystals and one richly invested with glossy black prismatic Hutchinsonite crystals exceptionally to 5 mm in length. The Hutchinsonite crystals are really well formed and extend across an area approximately 2.5 x 1 cm. This is an extremely rich Hutchinsonite.