Woodhouseite (rare) (ex Chet Lemanski Collection)

Item Description

This is a wonderful small cabinet specimen of the famous specimens of Woodhouseite from the type locality, the Champion Mine. The piece features sharp, lustrous, well-formed striated trigonal crystals of pale yellow Woodhouseite on Quartz matrix. The largest Woodhouseite measures about 3 mm (one is close to 4 mm), and the quality is excellent for the material. This rare phosphate is named after Charles Douglas Woodhouse (1888-1975), American Mineralogist and mineral collector, University of California, Santa Barbara. From the collection of Chester ("Chet") S. Lemanski Jr. of Browns Mills, New Jersey (https://www.mindat.org/user-461.html). Collection #1437CL. 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.