Wavellite (classic material) (ex Chet Lemanski Collection)

Item Description

A nice and showy specimen of somewhat velvety, attractive green Wavellite botryoids from the famous Mauldin Mountain quarries of Arkansas. The largest "ball" measures about 7 mm across. Classic material, and certainly some of the most beloved Wavellite in the world for color. The luster is definitely above average, and the large majority of the spheres are complete and not broken in half, which is significant as many Wavellites you'll see from this locality features a lot of incomplete and just plain broken spheres of Wavellite, so when you find an attractive piece like this, with undamaged "balls", it means something. From the collection of Chester ("Chet") S. Lemanski Jr. of Browns Mills, New Jersey (https://www.mindat.org/user-461.html). Collection #1398CL (erroneously labeled as coming from Mt Ida). 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. This piece was priced at $1,200 retail in our inventory.