Dimensions: 3 cm (width) x 2 cm (height) x 1.1 cm (thick)

Sample Weight: 0.23 ozt or 6.5 grams [includes matrix]

Most wire gold samples from both Breckenridge and Leadville are actually spinel-twin crystals that have formed elongated wire-like crystals.  "Sponge" gold is another distinctive habit seen mostly at Leadville.  Many of these samples appear to be crystallized, but the crystal "faces" are actually casts of quartz crystals that have been etched away. 

Leadville is typically thought of as a silver mining district, famous for Horace Tabor and the Matchless Mine among others, but there was a gold "belt" that encompassed the Ibex Mine and nearby mines not included in the Ibex group (the famous Little Jonny was the #1 shaft of the Ibex group) where miners extracted large quantities of gold after the original silver boom.  The Ibex was by far the greatest producer of gold in the Leadville district and helped line the coffers of John Campion and JJ Brown ("unsinkable" Molly's husband) among other notables.  Campion was also one of the more successful gold miners in Breckenridge with the Wapiti group.  The famous Campion gold collection includes some of the finest gold samples ever found in Colorado and is still on display at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science

Lot number: 1010-0025

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