Tourmaline on Quartz

Unknown Owner

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These legendary "mushroom" clusters of rubellite tourmaline came out in the 1990s, from Burma (now Myanmar) and were immediately treasured by mineral collectors. Almost impossible to find today on the market, we only see them as old collections recycle, occasionally. However, this is where it has always been since the day it came out in the mid-1990s, in the collection of "Burma Bill" Larson, of Fallbrook, CA. He kept a large and important Burma collection comprising a broad depth of species and styles, sizes and colors, from travel to that country over about 20 years during its heyday in the 1980s through early 2000s (he says, over 60 trips!). Nobody had seen the collection intact except the Smithsonian, to whom it was offered before me (they could not absorb so much quantity!), and we are very lucky to have it. See postings elsewhere on the site of other pieces, but this missed getting posted during the COVID years when we were selling the bulk of the collection, and comes as a surprise now simply because it got temporarily lost in cleaning. Comes with original Larson Burma collection label #440.