A lethal Peruvian treasure

Realgar! I remember when I first saw realgar (on ebay of course) I was amazed at its beauty and surprised that I hadn't heard of it before as a collectors mineral. Well, the disappointing truth is that it's an arsenic sulphide, so I won't be lovingly handling my realgar collection as I do with some of my other favourites. It's poisonous (used sometimes in rat poison) and carcinogenic. Probably you'd have to have it sprinkled on your food every day for a year to poison yourself. But who knows - what if one brief touch was enough?

What I love about this piece is the way the realgar crystal are sparsely distributed amongst equally attractive (and safe!) quartz crystals. You can't see it in this pic, other than the blurry bit at the front, but there are also small bits of pyrite scattered throughout.

Get ready for a few more mineral shots in coming days. I'm making a new attempt to "get into" photography by snapping my burgeoning mineral collection and selling it on ebay.