Tourmaline Var. Indicolite

Unknown Owner

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This is the "Freilich indicolite" as some have called it, a dramatic and vibrant piece with nearly electric color. The piece is complete all around, fully terminated, and free of damage. It weighs in at just over 1 kilo or 2.25 pounds. As the scan from the 2001 Sotheby's Auction Catalogue from the Joseph Freilich Auction states:"This remarkable cluster of parallel-growth tourmalien sis formed in such a way that light enters the crystals and shows the magnificent variations of green and (mostly) blue color. This effect is the result of the thin spread of the crystals." In other words, it is very translucent to light, though not gemmy per se, and the overlal effect is to make the piece literally GLOW with intensely blue color with even minimal backlighting. From the front, this is surprising because given the width you expect this to be a piece with equal thickness and so not transmissive to light.However, the illusion is that the front is really the palisade of the individual crystals grown together, none of them more than 3 cm thick; and thus the piece is surprisingly colorful in a case whereas most large indicolites are basically glorified schorls unles syou put a torch on top of them. I LOVE this piece. It is one of two specimens form this pocket which Freilich owned, and I was privileged to handle the other one back in 2001. This is, I can say, the better of the two specimens. You can see that even then, it was valued at $14-16k and in 2001 the market was at a whole different setpoint than it is now. I think it a bargain, today, and it is MUCH MUCH more impressive in person. Note that this comes with a lucite base, in which it is embedded solidly (attached with glue to the bottom, by previous owner). Looks good, and its sure stable, so I didn't carve it out and remove this base which now comes with the piece.