Wardite with Crandallite and Montgomeryite (ex Chet Lemanski Collection)

Item Description

Here we have an old-time, classic, attractive polish slab from an altered Variscite nodule featuring soft grey-blue colored Wardite along with pastel yellow Crandallite and light green Montgomeryite. If you look closely, you can see the radiating spherical form of the Wardite "balls", some of which have been sliced in half to show their internal structure. A beautiful and eye-catching specimens that dates back presumably to 1937 when the locality was actively mined by Ed Over with the help of Arthur Montgomery. Clay Canyon is the type locality for both Wardite and Montgomeryite, and to have both of them present on this specimen is a significant. Additionally, it's very important to note that Clay Canyon is the type locality for several minerals named after some of the most important figures in US mineral history from the first half of the 20th century including Arthur Montgomery, Ed Over, George English, Sam Gordon and Henry Augustus Ward! If you're not familiar with these individuals, be sure to check out their profiles either on mindat.org or the Mineralogical Record website. From the collection of Chester ("Chet") S. Lemanski Jr. of Browns Mills, New Jersey (https://www.mindat.org/user-461.html). Collection #1745CL. 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.