DESERT MOON NEWSLETTER, ISSUE 20, March 21, 2026

New Inventory and the Copper Queen Mine

Desertmoonnm.com

desertmoonnm@yahoo.com

Hi Folks,

Welcome to the beginning of Spring edition.  We just came back from Bisbee, Arizona. The objective was to do some hiking in the hills around the town, peruse the townsite, and to visit the Copper Queen Mine.  Bisbee is located in southeast Arizona in arid desert and mountain country.  Mining was established in the area in the 1870s for deposits of copper, that also contained gold and silver.  The original ore veins that were followed down into the hills around Bisbee started out with copper in the 20-30% range, which is unusually rich.  These rich ores instigated a mining boom from about 1880 into the 1920’s, where tunnels following the veins were dug deep into the hills.  More than 150 miles of tunnels were dug/blasted to get to the ores.  The tunnels were formed at several levels within the mountain with vertical and angled shafts to connect them.  By the 1950’s open pit mining began, with what appears to be several different pits, the last and biggest one appears to be the Lavender Pit not too far from the central part of town and next to the Copper Queen Mine.  Copper from the pits started in the few percent and by the end of mining operations in 1975 was well below 1% and apparently not rich enough to continue. 

Bisbee during this time was the 2^nd largest city in Arizona, almost as large as the growing Phoenix and slightly larger than Tucson.  It peaked at around 25,000 in the 1920s.  Today it has tapered down to around 5,000.  The central part of Bisbee is full of many multistory and large stone and brick buildings typical of cities in those times.  Most have been preserved and renovated and are in use.  And now it appears that the primary occupation in the area is tourism. 

We visited the Copper Queen Mine and did their tour.  They take us into the mine through one tunnel on the old small rail cars converted to carry tourists.  We were issued the round metal disks with coding/serial numbers to clip on to our shirts like the miners were required to have back in the day, hard hats, lights, yellow safety jackets, and off we went.  As a retired geologist and numismatist, following the metal in perhaps the most well-known copper mine of that mining era was pretty cool.  I have been in several mines over the years, but never on a tour, just going into adits and exploring, and never too far underground.  So this was a treat.  We had several stops where the guide explained how the mining operated and the risks to the miners.  Several hundred miners died in the mine over the years.  The last stop, we walked up a staircase built into a shaft that went up about 150 feet at 45 degrees.  As the end was a large chamber, maybe 100 feet in all directions, that had been carved out for mining.  To me it was interesting because one could really see the ore mineralization well in the chamber.  There were very fine veins of pure silver in the walls, different veins of sulfide, malachite which is a copper carbonate, and up to 1 meter-wide veins of layered/intermingled ore mineralization that the miners were clearly following through the host rock and mining.  The veins with the iron oxide magnetite, were where we were told the very fine and disseminated gold was coming out of.  These veins intermingled with the native copper and malachite so a very rich ore for sure.  I began to get a picture of fluids percolating through the host carbonate rock in fractures and as they cooled, would precipitate metal-rich minerals and native silver, copper, and gold.  And this had to happen for tens of thousands of years at least (maybe more), to build up so much mineralization. 

Later during our stay we went to the Bisbee Museum which is affiliated with the Smithsonian:

https://bisbeemuseum.org/

The first floor was dedicated to Bisbee history as a city where mining was the dominant activity.  Quite interesting.  A lot of the mined metal ended up in US coins, so the coins of the era had a lot of Bisbee in them.  The Copper Queen Mine was a dominant player in US metal during its era.  The final tally was 8 billion(!) tons of copper, 77 million pounds of silver and 2.8 million ounces of gold.  And there was a numismatic moment.  An old silver tray in one of the cabinets had around a dozen Morgan and Peace Dollars on it, looking XF to AU and all appeared to have original skins.  But the highlight was an 1896 Liberty Double Eagle.  It was a true stunner – I had my face as close to the glass as possible, about 6 inches from it.  It was essentially flawless with full mint frost.  I suspect it is at least an MS66 but likely even better.  Wow that was quite an impressive example!  I suspect these coins came from the Smithsonian numismatic collection and were on loan for the exhibit.

The second floor was dedicated completely to mining history.  The highlight was the room with mineral displays that contained incredible, museum quality (LOL) examples of minerals and grouped minerals that came out of the Copper Queen, including some that are only found in the Bisbee area rocks like Bisbeeite, a green copper silicate.  About 12 different minerals are unique to the area and are a result of the fluid mineralization that produced the ore bodies. 

In summary, if one is interested in mining history of the US, Bisbee is a worthwhile visit.  It was nice to see the old restored buildings in the central part of the town, the Copper Queen and Museum, and the townspeople were very relaxed and uber friendly.  Highly recommended.

We have 15 newps, all but one are too old to contain Bisbee metal.  But have a look and you can click on their images below that take you to their description pages.  We will have a couple more Cool Coin Showcases in the coming weeks before an April Newsletter for the build-up to CSNS.  In that Newsletter we will introduce what our offerings at the show will be, including a small group of extremely cool and crusty mid-19^th century silver coins we were fortunate to acquire – but more on that in a few weeks……………

Please email us at desertmoonnm@yahoo.com if you are interested in any of our offerings.

Thanks for reading!

Best, DM

The highlight of this list.