Schorl (classic East Coast locality) (ex Chet Lemanski Collection)

Item Description

A fantastic old time display specimen from the famous Strickland Quarry in Connecticut featuring several sharp, well-formed, lustrous, prismatic, jet-black crystals of Schorl Tourmaline measuring up to 5.2 cm long sitting on a layer of lustrous, platy Mica (Muscovite?) and massive beige colored Feldspar with minor Quartz. The Schorl crystals are in good condition, but with the exception of the largest crystals, they are not really terminated. It is incredibly difficult to find MATRIX specimens of Schorl from this famous old locale, and you would be hard pressed to find another on the market. The Strickland Quarry dates back to the 1840s and operated sporadically for nearly 150 years when it built over by a golf course in the 1990s. Valued in the inventory at $2,000. From the collection of Chester ("Chet") S. Lemanski Jr. of Browns Mills, New Jersey (https://www.mindat.org/user-461.html). Collection #2558CL. The catalogue entry for this specimen states that it was acquired from Dick Hauck on March 15, 1987 and was from the Kraissl collection. 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.