Dravite Tourmaline (vanadium-rich) - image 1

Dravite Tourmaline (vanadium-rich) - image 2

Dravite Tourmaline (vanadium-rich) - image 3

Dravite Tourmaline (vanadium-rich) - image 4

Dravite Tourmaline (vanadium-rich)

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This is a very rare item n today's market, from a few small pockets found in the late 1990s in Burma, now Myanmar. This is a Very fine, lustrous cluster of forest green Dravite, where the color originally was assumed to be induced by chromium when they came out (as with other chrome-green tourmalines of several varietals from Africa). However, work at the GIA determined them to be colored by trace vanadium at the time (all I saw came out through Bill Larson from one of his trips to Burma, and were sold out of his San Diego Company, including this one to Kay at the time). I have not seen these since and this is a LARGE example! The color is deep and rich, the luster excellent, and the little bit of gemminess along the surface creates a depth and sparkle to the tourmaline that is eye-catching. This excellent rare tourmaline thumbnail is contacted at the bottom and back, where it grew against matrix and was removed. ALL that I saw in the 1990s, perhaps several dozen crystals, were off matrix. From my memory, this would have been among the biggest and most intense of them. Interestingly, I found an analysis posted online for a specimen from this pocket here: https://www.mindat.org/photo-358945.html