It also occurs in the layered igneous complex of the Bushveld region of South Africa and the Oktyabr'skoye copper-nickel deposit near Noril'sk, Russia.

Sperrylite crystals vary considerably in shape and size and are usually enclosed in a variety of host minerals.

Sperrylite is cubic (2/m3) and is typically seen in well-developed cubes or cuboctahedra, some of which are so highly modified that crystal edges and comers appear rounded.

(Nicol and Goldschmidt 1903) identified seventeen crystal forms exhibited by sperrylite, including four different trapezohedra, a trisoctahedron, five pyritohedra, and four diploids.

He named it for Francis L. Sperry, chief chemist with the Canadian Copper Company of Sudbury, who collected the original material in 1887 (Mitchell 1985).

It occurred in weathered material with colorless transparent cassiterite [SnO2], which is thought to have been derived from the oxidation of stannite [Cu2(Fe,Zn)SnS4].