Discovered by the Spanish in 1598, the Ojuela mine is widely considered to be Mexico’s most significant mineral specimen locality. Despite its long history, the deposit did not come to the attention of the mineral collecting community until 1927 when W.F. Foshag of the Smithsonian Institution made a visit there.
Since the mid 1940s, large numbers of specimens (and species..117!) have reached the market including a number of spectacular habits and colors of adamite, among the world’s finest, as is the brilliant orange-yellow legrandite. The best of the köttigite-parasymplesite and paradamite specimens found here are also unrivalled. Well known on the collector market are the superb specimens of aurichalcite, calcite, fluorite, hemimorphite, mimetite, plattnerite, rosasite, scorodite, and wulfenite.
Small scale mining operations continue to this day and sporadic discoveries of good specimens keep material in the market. Nonetheless, when the classics of this premier locality come on the market, serious collectors generally need to act fast and dig deep to obtain these very fine pieces.
