Tourmaline

Unknown Owner

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This is a very impressive 805-gram (about 2 pounds!) beast from the turn of the 1900's workings at the Stewart. People living in San Diego today simply do not realize that the avenues leading to Pacific Beach were named after minerals because of the rich mines in the mountains, that led to booming business selling exactly this quality of tourmaline carving rough to the empress dowager of China (until about WWI). In San Diego today, I was shocked to be told that I was mispronouncing the street name Garnet (main drag to the beach) as the mineral name (GAR-net), instead of as the supposedly proper "gar-NET" which the locals today call it by. All the more ironic, because John Sinkankas lived at the end of that road, too!. Tourmaline, Beryl, Feldspar streets continue the trend. This piece is a survivor, and a rare one, of those early California tourmaline mining days. I need to note that the specimen, while nearly pristine on the front (and quite aesthetic as you can see!), has some damage on the backside and to some few of the small accessory/accent crystals. This does not detract in context, I feel. However, and the reason this isn't $50-75k, apparently Mr. Warner had a lapidary hobby as well and he gave the termination a polish back in the old days, so it is not a fully natural termination (though from pitting and trace cracks we can tell the polish is on the natural surface, and not a sliced surface). It is from the famed collection of Pasadena playboy millionaire, Thomas Warner, who bequeathed his collection to Cal Tech (from which Bill traded this out in the 1970s). Few survive because, just as then, they have INTRINSIC and very high carving value. This piece weighs 800 grams. It is the choicest old hot pink color. At carving rough prices, I can sell it today for $20,000 to the asian market to be turned into a pink lotus, or a tourmaline buddha. I did NOT take that offer, because it seems a travesty. So, here's hoping it finds its way to a new mineral collection home after Warner, Cal Tech, and larson in the last 90 years or so.