Copper

Origin: Houghton County, Michigan, U.S.A.

Sample size: 2.5 x 1 x 0.5 cm

Copper with cuprite on matrix

ex. Don Wharff Collection; Western Minerals (sold in 1988); Dr. Marvin Rausch Collection

Origin: Ray Mine, Pinal County, Arizona, U.S.A.

Sample size: 28 x 15 x 7 cm, Weight: 1280 grams

Origin: New Cornelia Mine, Ajo, Pima County, Arizona, U.S.A.

ex. Washington Roebling Collection; Smithsonian Museum (deaccessioned in 1982); Paul Heise Collection

Sample size: 21 x 14 x 4 cm, Weight: 1700 grams

Copper coated with cuprite

Origin: Ray Mine, Pinal County, Arizona, U.S.A.

Sample size: 15 x 10 x 8 cm

Copper "chisel sliver" from 1860 from the famous 40-ton nugget. A great, historical old piece cut by hand with chisel and hammer from a 40-ton piece of native copper! This find was famous. They hit a lode so rich that huge copper nuggets were found in the veins, and one measured some 40 tons. It could not be moved, nor could it be blasted (large coppers simply absorb the shock and compress a bit, but don't blast apart). Thus, the mine employed parties of miners working around the clock on three shifts for months, to carve the nugget up by hand and haul the pieces out. I am told that historians have written the mine actually LOST MONEY by the time all the human labor was factored in. This sliver is the kind of filing they would chip off the large nugget until, bit by bit, they reduced it and smelted the whole thing.

Origin: Eagle River, Lake Superior District, Michigan, U.S.A.

Ex. Richard Hauck collection

Sample size: 8.0 x 2.8 x 1.3 cm