Fluorite (rare color for the locality) (ex Chet Lemanski Collection)

Item Description

Most of the Fluorite specimens you'll find from this old historic locality in southern France are either a golden or yellow hue (sometimes with thin blue "phantom" zoning on the edges). This piece features a rarely seen purple hue, and when backlit, the "cores" of the crystals reveal a saturated rose-pink tone. The crystals measure up to 2.0 cm on edge, and most of them are in excellent condition, with only a bit of roughness around the edges where the piece was removed from the pocket wall. There are thousands of localities for Fluorite around the world, but you don't often see purple crystals from Valzergues, so if you're a Fluorite fanatic, or a fan of French minerals, don't pass this one up, as you may not see another like it for a long time. From the collection of Chester ("Chet") S. Lemanski Jr. of Browns Mills, New Jersey (https://www.mindat.org/user-461.html). Collection #0573CL. 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.