Aquamarine

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This is a natural jewel, a complete 147-gram floater aquamarine crystal from one of the most famous finds for beryl on the planet, really almost a legendary find as everybody wants one but so few specimen-quality pieces survived the cutter wheels. It is a barrel-shaped, classic Jaqueto aquamarine crystal...the best ones are just like this, tapering on the ends and with a big fat gem nodule in the middle. This locality is not in Minas gerais, but further north in Bahia, its own little deposit. This locality has produced some of the purest, most intense natural blue aquamarine for the gem trade in the past - and a few small pocekts of specimens as well. I showed this to a gem dealer friend, who routinely buys such things for cutting, and he told me that if the cut works ideally, there is a $10,000 gemstone in the central portion of this crystal. And, in that analysis, is why you see fewer and fewer of these survive as specimens when the cutting value is so easily obtained as gem rough. It also makes it difficult for dealers like me to buy these in Brazil, from old stashes, because we must compete and pay more than the cutting price to preserve the specimen.