Kyanite (rare New England locale)

Item Description

A rarely seen Kyanite specimen from a small prospecting pit in Connecticut that is now closed to collectors. Even when it was being worked, the locality never did produce many specimens. The Kyanite crystals are similar in color to the pieces from Barro da Salinas, Brazil, and like most of those, embedded in matrix, though you can tell pretty quickly that this is not a Brazilian specimen. It features attractive blue color, thin prismatic crystals measuring up to 5.3 cm, embedded into massive Quartz matrix. This is one of the biggest, richest and showiest examples that we've had to offer from this locality that dates back to the 1930s. From the collection of Chester ("Chet") S. Lemanski Jr. of Browns Mills, New Jersey (https://www.mindat.org/user-461.html). Collection #2198CL, and the catalogue entry for the piece states that it was exported from China and imported into the United States by The Rocksmiths, and was purchased by Chet on February 8, 2001 (TGMS Show). 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.