Sperrylite

A hand specimen of a 3 mm cluster of broken sperrylite crystals from Talnakh Cu-Ni Deposit.

The matrix is a mixture of sperrylite and chalkopytrite as well as rare microscopic talnakhite (Cu9(Fe,Ni)8S16), cabriite (Pd2SnCu) and mooihoekite (Cu9Fe9S16) occure.

Sperrylite is one of the few platinum-bearing minerals and is highly sought after by collectors. This piece came out of Russia recently and features some smaller sperrylite crystal faces and massive sperrylite mixed in the matrix. It looks like this specimen is at least 5% sperrylite. Because of the rarity of this mineral and the high cost of platinum, i have seen specimens of similar quality going for 2 hundreds euros recently!

Country Russia
Locality Talnakh Cu-Ni Deposit, Norilsk, Putoran Plateau, Taimyr Peninsula
Dimensions 6,6x3,9x2,5 cm
Weight 65.2g