NRK3 Inesite

Fengjiashan Mine, Huangshi Pref., Hubei Prov., China

6.2x 6.4x 3.7 cm

$1350

A deep red inesite from the Fengjiashan Mine, also known as the Daye Mine.  This mine has been one of China’s most prolific specimen producers in recent years, notable for its calcites, amethysts and apophyllites, as for well being the type locality for hubeite.  Perhaps the greatest thing to come from this locality so far however, have been these inesites. 

 The best specimens come out in the 2005-2006 time period, around the time that this specimen would have been recovered.  In my opinion, these inesites represent one of the iconic finds of the Chinese mineral bonanza that has taken place over the last 14 or so years; others would include the pyromorphites, mimetites, scheelites, etc. Yet unlike some of these finds, the production of inesite was fairly short lived.

 This specimen is a complete cluster of the mineral on matrix, with small pyrite crystals scattered around the periphery of the specimen.  The color is great, in fact, if it were not for the pyrite it would be easy to mistake this for one of the 1980’s inesites from Wessels, South Africa (I should point out, that nearly 30 years later those are still more abundant than the Chinese examples). 

On that note, I will also add that South Africa’s manganese fields are the only other recent source of inesite that I can think of, though the contemporary specimens tend to lack the depth of color present in the 2005-2006 Fengjiashan specimens, and the 1980’s Wessels specimens.  Prior to that, Hale Creek in California also produced some very great pieces, with big crystals but a very light pink color.