Azurite with Malachite (classic material)

Item Description

Bisbee is not only one of the great US localities, but it is one of the world's premier localities for Azurite and Malachite. Here we have a wonderful, big/robust old-time example featuring a fine quality, classic, lustrous, rich midnight blue colored crystals of Azurite measuring up to 6 mm across, associated with beautiful velvety green groups of Malachite sitting on massive Cuprite and Limonite matrix. It appears that the Azurite crystals are sitting on a layer of botryoidal pale blue (partially iron-coated) Chalcoalumite as well. There is one tiny patch of what looks like Cyanotrichite, it's a much brighter blue than the Azurites, but it could just be Azurite of a different style. Good quality up close, and you rarely see such big hefty pieces like this from Bisbee on the market anymore. Very showy and the combination of Azurite with Malachite is one of the most recognized associations in the mineral collecting world.
From the collection of Chester ("Chet") S. Lemanski Jr. of Browns Mills, New Jersey (https://www.mindat.org/user-461.html). Collection #8290CL. 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.