I purchased a very neatly arranged and well labelled collection of Cloncurry - Mount Isa region specimens at the Kempsey Rock and Mineral Auction last Saturday. I had bid on the lot because it contained a pseudomalachite specimen that would fill a gap in my collection. While examining the other specimens in the set, I came upon a really interesting specimen of baryte from a mine I had not heard of called the Silver Phantom Mine. There was no data about this mine on Mindat, but I was able to find mention on a US mining data source. The mine was near a location called Malbon, 69km from Cloncurry. It produced 32 848oz of silver from 27t of ore and closed in 1954. In the baryte, labelled as containing minor chalcopyrite, I also noticed some golden-brown grains, some of which had become a brilliant metallic blue colour, the one I tested scratched easily with a dressmakers pin and produced some flakes which appeared to be cleavage fragments in one plane. I could not tell whether the flakes were at all flexible owing to their miniscule size. I cannot find any reference about the silver-containing minerals in this mine, but perhaps sternbergite was significant??

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