Andradite Garnet (RARE locality specimen) (ex Chet Lemanski Collection)

Item Description

This is certainly the first and only Andradite specimen we've seen from this locality. According to Chet's collection catalogue, this piece is from near Jacumba, California. It hosts several fairly sharp, dark reddish-black colored trapezohedral crystals of Andradite Garnet measuring up to 1.2 cm across sitting on grey mica schist matrix. No major damage, but there are a few pockmarks in the matrix where some Garnet crystals once existed. If you collect Garnets, San Diego County minerals, or just oddball locality specimens, don't pass this one up. From the collection of Chester ("Chet") S. Lemanski Jr. of Browns Mills, New Jersey (https://www.mindat.org/user-461.html). Collection #17117CL. Chet was born 1947 in started collecting minerals circa 1957. He worked briefly as a drill runner at the famous Sterling Mine, in Ogdensburg, New Jersey and from 1987 to 1990 he helped convert the mine into a public access mining museum. He has held the role of treasurer, vice president and president of the Franklin-Ogdensburg Mineralogical Society (FOMS), and has been a board member and vice president of the Franklin Mineral Museum. The rare copper arsenate, Lemanskiite was named in his honor in 1999.