Spinel with Chondrodite

Item Description

A fine specimen from Lục Yên, Vietnam featuring golden-orange Chondrodite crystals and masses associated with sharp, lustrous, octahedral purplish-pink Spinel crystals and masses measuring up to 1.3 cm, with colorless to pale tan Phlogopite crystals. Several of the Spinel crystals are highly lustrous and well-formed. These were much more plentiful on the market 20 years ago, but seldom seen today.
From the collection of Chester ("Chet") S. Lemanski Jr. of Browns Mills, New Jersey (https://www.mindat.org/user-461.html). Collection #15940CL, 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.