Pyromorphite -very old classic locale (Ref: 0100-JM-141)

A choice historic Pyro and a very uncommon locality piece that is quite a lot nicer than just a "reference" specimen. From the ancient lead mining area in Czech Republic, Bleistadt (or Olovi) in Bohemia has been mined for centuries beginning in the early 14th century. This specimen was in the Moritz Lechner Collection (1850-1903) of Austria which was made up of several much earlier collections going back to the early 18th century. Much of this collection was later obtained by the Schortmann brothers (Massachusetts, USA) who sold this piece in 1969 to John Marshall. John was building a comprehensive Pyromorphite suite and seeking as many rare locality pieces as possible. The labels are included along with the Marshall collection card. The specimen itself has several blocky, dark brown, lustrous crystals to almost 1 CM on a vuggy Quartz matrix. In very good condition the matrix has been crudely sawn long ago on the back and sides. A few older labels and numbers are affixed on this specimen which predate the Lechner collection number. While we do not know the earliest collection history of this piece it is clearly very very old and a very nice bit of mineralogical history.