Copper with Tenorite coating Cuprite (ex Chet Lemanski Collection)

Item Description

An odd association specimen from the famous Ray Mine featuring some bright patches of metallic Native Copper which are intermixed with black Tenorite, which has coated small octahedral crystals of Cuprite. If you look closely, the Cuprite crystals have a bit of a blue-grey oxidation on the surface as well, possibly Chrysocolla(?). You don't see many Copper specimens like this from the Ray Mine, and although Copper and Cuprite are often associated together from this locality, this particular style is unusual in my experience. From the collection of Chester ("Chet") S. Lemanski Jr. of Browns Mills, New Jersey (https://www.mindat.org/user-461.html). Collection #15141CL. 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.