Collections of minerals

For some stones, the location of the find is sometimes confused, but sometimes even the name of the mineral is confused. One of the greatest connoisseurs of stones today, expert and author of a number of specialist literature, friend Jaroslav Hyršl, listed this stone in his book Tschechien und Slowakei Mineralien und Fundstellen as Mimetezit from Příbrami. This made the sample a completely unique find of Příbram mimetezite, and there were even stories about its exact location. And more stories piled up about how it was found and preserved as a single piece by Soviet geologists. However, when acquiring this “unique” item for the collection of the PATRIOT Gallery, I thoroughly compared it with other types of stones in the deposit of the National Museum in Prague, analyzed the substrate and the accompanying minerals, and the result was that it is definitely Pyromorphite from Oloví. Despite this, the stone is exceptional and unique. It is not represented in any other collection in this size and quality.

This very old specimen has passed through a number of collections. I personally bought it for the PATRIOT Gallery from the owner of the American online store Well Arranged Molecules. I was intrigued by the unusual amount of original labels from previous collections. The oldest two were very difficult to read, and therefore it was not even possible to determine the year of acquisition, but the historical price of the time, when the stone was purchased for 2 florins, which is the designation for the Austro-Hungarian gold, was visible. In an unknown way, the stone got into the collections of the University of Pennsylvania, from there it traveled to the private collection of the American collector Charles M. Noll, then it was acquired by David M. Crawford (Fine Mineral Specimens) and from there the already mentioned dealer Well Arranged Molecules. It is also worth noting that the stone was so dirty when it was acquired that only after the professional cleaning by Petr Kolesár did I discover beautiful clusters of chalcopyrite crystals. And to add to the story, when publishing in the book TOP 111 under number 051, the locality was confused and it is mistakenly listed as Fluorite, Chalcopyrite from Příbrami.

I got this large and beautiful purple fluorite from Krupka from Martin Števk, then in collaboration with Crystal Classics, in a potato box together with other large-format samples that came from Martin Bohatý’s collection. At first I was not interested in the stone at all, so I put it aside for sale. A friend, Honza Loun, showed interest in him and offered an amount of around 10,000 for him. CZK. When I wanted at least 12 thousand CZK, so he rejected it, saying that “shuter” is outdated and ugly. I had the stone cleaned and Vláďa Slepička returned it to me in a completely different condition. It turned out to be a beautiful undamaged specimen with large shiny crystals that were barely visible originally. That stone absolutely took my breath away and immediately ranked among the highest quality stones of the PATRIOT Gallery. “I’d be tearing my hair out now” if Honzo had paid extra then and I would have sold him in the end.

This stone also went through a number of private collections of important collectors – for example Peter Huber, Reinhard Dallinger or Reinhard Exel. And just Dr. Geol. Reinhard Exel, who is a prominent Austrian mineralogist and geologist, noted on the label of this specimen: “This is a historical find from the 19th century, possibly even the 18th century.” This exceptionally good specimen of Polybazite from the Příbram mines is very rare. I haven’t come across anything like it in other museums yet!”

I am glad that its high quality was confirmed by a real expert, and I am glad that the stone is back in our Czech Republic and can thus be presented to the public in the PATRIOT Gallery.

A top-notch silver wire on argentite crystals was found by a friend of Vilda Šturek in 1984 on the 20th floor of the L1 vein of shaft 4 in Příbram – Lešetice. The sample comes from a cavity that was 30 to 40 cm wide and so high that the mining lamp of the time could not reach its end. The height was certainly greater than about 8 meters. Polyhedral calcite scalenohedra up to 10 cm in size were colored in various shades of red to orange. From some calcite crystals, up to several cm large silver wires, or their aggregates, grew.

Most of the better samples from this cavity are apparently in foreign collections and I am very happy that this top sample is the pride of the exhibitions of the PATRIOT Gallery in Tišnov. Most of the cavity from which the find is described has never been excavated.

Information taken from the article by the finder Vilém Šturek and the collective of authors published in the magazine MINERÁL, year XXVI, 2018/1, page 40.