Fluorite (ex Chet Lemanski Collection)

Item Description

A beautiful cabinet sized specimen of sharp, very lustrous, gemmy, mottled purple-over white/colorless, lustrous, cubic Fluorite crystals free of matrix. The underside of the piece is re-crystallized ("re-healed"), making the piece nearly a complete "floater" A few contacts on the top / display side keep the piece from being damage free, but it's still an impressive specimen due to the fact that you never see cabinet sized pieces of Fluorite from Santa Eulalia like this these days. This piece dates back to the 1990s, when similar material was coming out of the locality. From the collection of Chester ("Chet") S. Lemanski Jr. of Browns Mills, New Jersey (https://www.mindat.org/user-461.html). Collection #9996CL. 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.