Mimetite (ex Chet Lemanski Collection)

Item Description

A classic cabinet sized specimen of these now elusive Mimetites featuring very lustrous, rich yellow to yellow-orange colored, sharp, hexagonal crystals and semi-spherical aggregates measuring to 3 mm sprinkled all over the underlying oxidized matrix. With magnification, you can see the prismatic Mimetite crystals are actually very gemmy, but the semi-spherical groups are more translucent. These Mimetites represented a very important and limited find for the species when they came out in 2004. Sadly, no more have been found since, but they remain an important discovery in the history of Chinese minerals. From the collection of Chester ("Chet") S. Lemanski Jr. of Browns Mills, New Jersey (https://www.mindat.org/user-461.html). Collection #20579CL. 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.