Tourmaline

When you consider the size, this speaks for itself. A magnificent large blue tourmaline from the early 2000s-era heyday of the famous Pederneira mine, with spectacular presence and elegance for such a large tourmaline. This piece is quite literally the major piece in the 2004 "Lunch Break Pocket" as you see in the story attached. Unlike most large examples from this mine, this piece features very robust and very blue crystals. The mine produced mostly slender tourmaline, and so, thick and robust crystals as you see here were always very rare. Perhaps there are only 3 specimens of this size and condition, of large blue tourmalines from here. It is surely the rarest color. The association with the large gemmy quartz just takes it to another level; and the piece is displayable 360 degrees all around, as well! It has, miraculously, only a small restoration and one repair, despite the size. You can see the published story of this specimen as illustrated in a special page of the book on the Pederneira Mine (Mineralogical Record: January–February 2015). It is also illustrated in numerous other publications including Texas Mineral Collectors (Mineralogical Record), Minerals of Brazil, Mineral Collections of Brazil, and the 2010 Munich Show guide book with that year's theme of Brazilian gem crystals. This was long in my own (Rob Lavinsky) personal collection of only 10 Brazilian pieces I had put away in the mid-2000s.