Tourmaline Var. Cuprian

Unknown Owner

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This is a major example of the find, from the small pockets of cuprian-tourmaline found in the late 1980s here. The crystal is complete, and a floater, terminated all around. It has a riveting color and is fat and robust, so it shows a depth of hue rarely seen in typically skinny, slender Paraiba tourmalines. It glows from across the room, thumbnail or not. This would be one of the ultimate grails of establishing an important gem thumbnail collection. This was obtained by well known thumbnail collector Ralph Clark, from the collection of dealer Heitor Barbosa in 1990. Reference the Min Record v22 pages 217-219 and v33 127-137: "almost all good crystals of any size tend to be shattered and the remainder are generally imbedded; non-gemmy and not of good collecting quality. Surviving crystals are usually in the 1-3 cm range...even very small crystals of good color, form, and transparency, will probably remain very rare in collections." Joe Budd photos