The disproportionation reaction between the copper(II) complexes, Cu(ClO(4))(2) center dot 6H(2)O and [Cu(S(2)CNR(2))(2)] is a well-established route to copper(III) Complexes [Cu(S(2)CNR(2))(2)][ClO(4)] but to date the nature of the copper(l) species generated has remained a mystery. We now show that with [Cu(S(2)CNPr(2))(2)] this is the copper(l) cluster, [Cu(8)(mu(2), mu(2)-S(2)CNPr(2))(6)][ClO(4)](2) which contains a cubic array of copper atoms, each face cube being capped by a dithiocarbarnate ligand such that the sulfur atoms define an icosahedron and the backbone carbons an octahedron around the cube centroid. A crystal structure of [Cu(4)(mu(2),eta (1)-S(2)CNBu(2))(4)] is also presented for comparison. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.