Elbaite Tourmaline with Quartz

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A robust, raspberry red Elbaite Tourmaline dominates this beautiful piece from the Palelni Mine in Burma. The Elbaite crystal is incredibly unique with a rounded "trunk" composed entirely of fine-grained, scintillating Elbaite and then capped by triangular, pyramid-shaped mushroom-like hat. Looking at the underside of the piece it is revealed that the core of the Elbaite is black Schorl. The big Elbaite is almost entirely surrounded by milky white to slightly smoky, stubby, terminated Quartz crystals for great accent and contrast. This is a colorful, well balanced pegmatite combination specimen from the Bill Larson collection. Many of these came out - in the 1990s! But even then, this would have been an authentically rare combination with unusual aesthetics. In those days, few matrix pieces were collected intact, and without damage. This has been in the Larson collection for over 20 years. Although now considered "Burma style" and obvious in photos as such, these have not been found in quality since that time.