Dravite Tourmaline (rare locality specimen) (ex Chet Lemanski Collection)

Item Description

This piece is labeled as coming from Unterdraubürg, Carinthia, Austria in Chet's collection catalogue, but I can't find a listing for this locality anywhere, so I can't say for certain if the information is accurate. With that said, there are several localities in Carinthia for Dravite, so it could be from several different localities. This piece features dozens of crystals and partial crystals of gemmy, golden-brown colored prismatic trigonal Dravite Tourmalines measuring up to 8 mm sitting on and frozen in off-white colored Mica schist matrix. Most of the crystals are not fully terminated, but when there are crystals on every side, and when you rotate the piece, you can find some excellent crystal faces almost everywhere. From the collection of Chester ("Chet") S. Lemanski Jr. of Browns Mills, New Jersey (https://www.mindat.org/user-461.html). Collection #22683CL. 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.