Fire Opal (ex Chet Lemanski Collection)

Item Description

A beautiful and classic example of the famous Fire Opals from Queretaro, Mexico. It should be noted that this piece was labeled as coming from Chihuahua, but it's clearly a Queretaro specimen. The piece hosts patches of gemmy Fire Opal which show brilliant electric multi-colored flashes sitting on pinkish-tan rhyolite matrix. The Fire Opal sections just explode with color when rotated in the light. These are some of the most distinctive and eye-catching Opals outside of Australia, and beloved for their eye-catching arrays of color that they display. From the collection of Chester ("Chet") S. Lemanski Jr. of Browns Mills, New Jersey (https://www.mindat.org/user-461.html). Collection #2893CL. 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.