Pyromorphite Ex Dr. Nicolaus Klenner (Ref: 5664)

What an incredibly rich and colorful Pyromorphite specimen with countless, intimately intergrown grass green Pyromorphite crystals on a matrix of massive, partly drusy Barite. The crystals, many of which with six-sided cross sections are up to 0.6 cm tall and have a slight hopper growth in some places. Excellent all-round crystallized locality piece that is rarely offered! This incredible specimen is from the collection of Dr. Nicolaus Klenner, Limbach-Oberfrohna, Germany.The Heilige Dreifaltigkeit Grube (Holy Trinity Mine) where the specimen originates has an interesting history. It was first mentioned in 1478, and its productive period as Lead mine lasted until 1830. After that, the Freiberg Mining Academy and others, who had become aware of the exceptionally good deposits of Pyromorphite during the mine’s active period began specimen mining for its own “Mineralien Niederlage”, the mining academy´s sales and exchange organization. Again and again, Pyromorphite specimens were recovered from 1830 until the beginning of the 20th century, they were processed on a large scale and sold or swapped to all important collections in the world. Around 1990 the pit was closed and most of the access points were sealed.