Titanite with Muscovite on Orthoclase (ex Chet Lemanski Collection)

Item Description

Here we have an uncommon Titanite crystal from the Acushnet Quarry in Massachusetts. This locality is well-known to collectors of the East Coast of the US for producing Alpine cleft type mineral specimens, reminiscent of the European Alps. This particular piece could easily be mistaken as coming from a Swiss or Austrian locality, but the value in enhanced in my mind due to the fact that it's from Acushnet. Several sharp, lustrous, twinned crystals of greenish-golden colored Titanite measuring up to 8 mm can be seen among bladed silvery Muscovite crystals on pink Orthoclase matrix. Very little damage and a beautiful "Alpine-type" display specimen from this well-known New England locality. From the collection of Chester ("Chet") S. Lemanski Jr. of Browns Mills, New Jersey (https://www.mindat.org/user-461.html). Collection #2194CL. 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.