This is a beautiful specimen of erythrite from Schneeberg, Germany. It probably dates to 1850, maybe even before 1850. The mine itself was opened up in the 1400s as a silver mine, and when they ran out of silver, they started mining cobalt. Erythrite is a cobalt mineral, and when the miners found these beautiful cobalt crystals, they called them cobalt blossoms or cobalt flowers. That let them know they were very close to a really rich vein of cobalt.

On the back of the specimen, there's a nice old label, and the old label, it says it's from Schneeberg, Saxony, Germany, but it also talks about a hydrated arsenate of cobalt, and then erythrite. I was looking into this, and that hydrous arsenate of cobalt is old lingo. And the way it was written, it suggests it's probably originally a French mineralogist's description that was adopted by the English and later Americans and whatnot. But this label suggests this is from the 1800s, maybe the mid-1800s. The specimen is beautiful all the way around. The crystals, the erythrite, still have wonderful color, and they're perched on a vuggy, dark brown gossan matrix. Just a wonderful old specimen. It's the kind of thing you hardly ever see, these really old specimens, especially with old labels like this one. Erythrite from Saxony, Germany, the Schneeberg Mine.