Elbaite (old classic find)

Unknown Owner

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Here we have a rich, deep blue Indicolite Tourmaline crystal from the Manoel Motuca pegmatite in Brazil, a historic locality known in the 1950s-1960s for intense blue gem rough but largely forgotten by collectors today; the color is distinctive, as is the shape and style, to the older folks in the gem trade who remember it well and whom have helped us identify such crystals in the past (another larger example is on the site, from the Halpern collection circa 1960s). It displays highly striated, satin lustered prism faces and a rough, complex termination with numerous, very fine, multiple, almost bristly terminations at the top. This 2.5 inch crystal is distinctly striated parallel to its length. The Tourmaline is dark, but backlighting reveals that the top one-third is a rich teal-green while the bottom two-thirds is an intense and gorgeous indicolite-blue - and this is EXACTLY the reason you do not see many today. They were nearly all cut. The gem rough was too valuable at the time compared to specimens and they went to Idar and were cut. This is a rare survivor!