Elbaite Tourmaline

Unknown Owner

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This utterly unique tourmaline is like none I have seen before and I thought it Brazilian (as did Zinn and everybody else for a decade or more), until recently told otherwise by a German collector with a good eye. It is complete all around and really elegant. The specimen is Illustrated in Lapis 1/1979 on page 30: :a Namibian specimen from Otjimbingwe Mine by Josef Berger (link is http://www.irocks.com/pics/mz82d.jpg). Between 1979 and Marty Zinn's acquisition of the piece in the 1990s, the trail of hands had lost the label and the piece was long assumed to be Brazilian (indeed, although the terminations are odd, it looks like the color scheme of old 1960s era Golconda tourmalines and thus was assumed to be one). The piece has merit on its own for the interesting play of colors and form of the terminations, but the history is neat as well. Ex. Martin Zinn Collection.