Cuprite with silver

The cuprites from the Rubtsovskiy Mine in Russia are widely considered the best ever found. The Rubtsovsky Mine is an operating copper mine, and the oxidation zone has produced Cuprites, Azurites, native copper, silver, and iodine minerals like Miersite, and Marshite. I have been following the production for the last two years, to better understand how these are unique and what pieces stand out from "the crowd." About 95+% of the production have damage of some kind to a corner or edge. This is largely due to the miners who when extracting crystals from the kaolin clay zone (which protects the Cuprites), they drop them into their pockets, and they get dinged. 

This piece is well crystallized with edges about 2 cm long(one edge is slightly elongated at 2.4 cm). It is lustrous, with small silver crystals on two faces. The Rubtsovskly Mine is the only location in the world where silver occurs on Cuprites (Mineralogical Almanac Vol. 16, issue 1, 2011). there are a half dozen smaller cuprites attached to the side of the central large crystal. It's in great condition, with only one "dulled," corner, on its bottom.