Lazulite ((fine crystals)

Item Description

Lazulite is an uncommon magnesium aluminum phosphate mineral, found in many world localities, but fine display quality crystallized specimens are not terribly common in nature. Typically, Lazulites can be a bit dull and on the pastel blue side of the spectrum, but the area around Rapid Creek in the Yukon of Canada has produced the finest Lazulite crystals the world in terms of color and quality. The dark blue highly lustrous crystals are synonymous with Rapid Creek. This area is only accessible for a few months in the summer for collecting (it's under snow and ice the rest of the year), and is some of the most treacherous terrain in the world for collecting specimens with steep talus slopes and unstable ground. Here we have a lovely display piece featuring excellent quality, sharp, lustrous, very well formed, monoclinic, deep inky blue color crystals of Lazulite measuring up to a 8 mm associated with small gem Quartz crystals on matrix. Most of the crystals are in good shape, but there are some contacts, so the piece is not completely pristine.
From the collection of Chester ("Chet") S. Lemanski Jr. of Browns Mills, New Jersey (https://www.mindat.org/user-461.html). Collection #19270CL. 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.