Muscovite (highly aesthetic specimen) (ex Chet Lemanski Collection)

Item Description

Mica is typically an accessory mineral, and is not often found in aesthetic, three-dimensional display specimens like this. Brazil is one of the few exceptions when it comes to Mica specimens, as some of the showiest examples have been found around Minas Gerais. This piece is a gorgeous small cabinet featuring three distinct layered crystals groups of bronze colored Muscovite Mica with no attached matrix. The piece is nearly a "floater", but there are a few small points of attachment, so it's not 100% complete all the way around. Interestingly, when backlight, you can see a distinct reddish hue coming through the crystals, a color rarely seen in any Mica species. A beautiful and hard to find piece, as Mica specimens simply are not this eye-catching or artfully formed. Priced in the inventory at $950. From the collection of Chester ("Chet") S. Lemanski Jr. of Browns Mills, New Jersey (https://www.mindat.org/user-461.html). Collection #3169CL. 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.