1700's UBER RARE CRYSTAL SILVER: ALVA SILVER MINE, SILVER GLEN, SCOTLAND - NR!

Description

Here is an exceptionally rare small thumbnail to micro sized specimen of native silver growing in mini crystals and masses with associated pink erythrite and no real matrix and it comes from a very old and extremely historical Scottish locality.  This specimen comes mounted in a 1.75 inch diameter round, clear plastic case and ready for immediate display.  And these guys are uber rare as they come from the Alva Silver Mine in Silver Glen, Alva, Clackmannanshire, Scotland, UK!  Folks, we urge you to do an intensive web search and see if you can find anyone offering any crystal silver specimens from this locality, then come on back and grab this specimen while it's available.
We have some very good friends who live in Scotland, and they have some other very good Scottish mineral collector buddies.  And one of those buddies is a gentleman named Dr. Stephen Moreton.  Moreton has a PhD from the University of Edinburgh and is a well known Scottish mineral expert and the author of many articles, reviews, patents and research papers on mineralogy and mining history.
Back around 1981 Dr. Moreton became interested in the old Alva silver mine after spending time collecting on the old dumps and actually still finding some small silver specimens back then.  Later on he worked with the National Museum of Scotland to protect the area for historic purposes, which also apparently included some exhaustive workings of any remaining waste piles for specimens, the best of which went on to become property of the Museum.
Dr. Moreton subsequently wrote the book "
Bonanza's and Jacobites
", which tells the very interesting story of this old silver mine that was discovered in December of 1714, begun working in 1715, and then the Jacobite Revolution occurred and the owner of the estate with the mine, Sir John Eskine (a direct descendant of Robert the Bruce, former king of Scotland) joined the revolt with "The Pretender" (James Francis Edward Stuart) in their attempt to take over the kingship of England, Scotland and Ireland.  The takeover did not work, Erskine tried to hide his mine, ended up losing it to the king, the king appointed Sir Isaac Newton (yep, that same Newton that developed the theory of gravity) to oversee an inspection of the mine and to get it going again, but Newton claimed he was unqualified in the craft of mining and in 1716 another man assumed the role.  The mine continued to be worked on and off by various entities until around 1723 and then it lay inactive for 25 years until 1758 when it was reopened to extract cobalt that had not been removed during the silver mining years.  The cobalt effort ended around 1770, and that was the final end of the wildly historic Alva Silver Mine!
Anyway, long story short, two years ago I was able to acquire part of a collection of these incredibly rare crystal silver specimens, many of them came from the collection of Dr. Stephen Moreton, and the rest came from the collection of my Scottish friend and his father, who were both collecting at the Alva Mine back in early 1980s with Stephen, and I was able to work a deal with them to get all of these crazy rare pieces they were willing to sell!  So take a good look, I doubt I will ever be able to get any more of these again!
The silver crystals are individually quite small, no more than 1 mm in size, but the piece is pretty much all silver with minor pink erythrite and quite fun to explore under a hand lens, and this locality is nearly impossible to find available today!  It measures 1.5 x 0.5 x 0.3 cm in size, weighs 6.0 grains not including the case, and 9.1 grams with the case, and it comes professionally labeled and mounted in a 1.75 x 5/8 inch round, clear, foam filled plastic gemstone case and ready for immediate display.
The history of this locality is really interesting, and if you want to learn the rest of the story, find a copy of Dr. Moreton's book Bonanzas and Jacobites.  Its a very good read!
Or, you could just read on and I'll provide a bit more fun history for you below.
Silver Glen lies approximately 1 km to the east of the town of Alva in Clackmannanshire, Scotland, and takes its name from the silver that was mined there in the early 18th century. The story of the silver mine is a remarkable one.  The deposit, the richest deposit of native silver ever found in the British Isles, was discovered just as the Jacobite Rising of 1715 was breaking out, and its owner, Sir John Erskine, left to join the rebels, leaving his wife in charge of the mine.  Some 40 tons of ore were raised and buried in barrels in the grounds of Alva House, while the richest of the ore was smelted and the ingots concealed under floorboards inside the house.
The mine was then filled in during the aftermath of the failed rising, but its existence was revealed to the government by an employee of the Erskines.  Samples of the ore were analyzed by the famous Sir Isaac Newton and found to be very rich. Sir John was later able to secure a pardon for his role in the rising, on condition he revealed all he knew about the mine, and gave a tenth of the proceeds to the government.  Mining resumed a few years later and the remainder of the deposit was extracted.  Later, in 1758, a vein carrying erythrite, an ore of cobalt, was found and gave a new lease of life to the mine, but it was soon exhausted
.
Many of the old mine workings can still be seen, but the new landowners have installed locked gates on the more extensive workings, as there are unprotected shafts within.  There is not much trace of silver to be found now, as the dumps have been well worked over by mineral collectors. Some fine examples of crystallized dendritic silver were found in the 1980s
and 90s, and that is where this specimen comes from.
The Alva silver mine is now barren.  A full account of the extraordinary history of the Alva Silver Mine is related in the book entitled, "Bonanzas & Jacobites: The Story of the Silver Glen" by Dr. S. Moreton and published by NMS Enterprises Ltd.
We are offering this fine rare silver specimen for a SUPER LOW starting bid and NO RESERVE, so lets have some fun!  Our preferred method of payment is PAYPAL, but we do accept most other common payment methods.  If you have a question about payment options, please drop us a quick e-mail.   Shipping will be charged at cost.
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