Fluorite with Calcite (RARE New Jersey locality!) (ex Chet Lemanski Collection)

Item Description

An incredibly hard to find Fluorite specimen from what was labeled as the Rocky Hill Quarry near Kingston New Jersey. It's listed on mindat.org as the Trap Rock Industries Kingston Quarry in Franklin Township, New Jersey. We've never had a piece of this material to offer in the auctions, and we could only find TWO other examples on mindat for reference, so you know this is rare material. The catalogue entry for this specimen in Chet's collection states that this specimen was, "Collected by Al Bliss (April 1989) under the auspices of Rutgers University." It's truly a reference specimen, but if you're a Fluorite fanatic, this is a great chance to get your hands on something that is almost impossible to find on the market. The piece hosts small purple Fluorite crystals measuring up to 5 mm, intermixed with white Calcite on diabase matrix. As I mentioned, this is a reference piece, with obvious damage, but still a very cool specimen for the rare locality. This locality dates back at least to mid 1800s, and according to the entry on mindat.org, "The expansion of the quarry in the 19th century forced the moving of Rockingham, the house where, in 1783, George Washington had his final headquarters of the Revolutionary War.". From the collection of Chester ("Chet") S. Lemanski Jr. of Browns Mills, New Jersey (https://www.mindat.org/user-461.html). Collection #0666CL. 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.