Tourmaline on Quartz (floater) - image 1

Tourmaline on Quartz (floater) - image 2

Tourmaline on Quartz (floater) - image 4

Tourmaline on Quartz (floater)

Unknown Owner

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For those who love San Diego pegmatite minerals and tourmalines as much as I/we do, this is an obvious treasure. We almost never see good Himalaya's on matrix! Not only is this wonderful, nearly 8-cm-long tourmaline on matrix, but it is on a matrix of crystallized quartz; and the whole thing is a floater. It is complete all around with no attachment points, both tourmaline and quartz. It is elegant and colorful. The contrast of form and color of the species is great, but more importantly the quartz acts as such a unique natural pedestal to display the crystal. I cannot recall seeing anything of this style, in this condition, and with such elegance, beyond a fairly well-known cabinet sized piece in the Larson collection in the past. The Himalaya Mine was very disrupted in geology and is ancient, hundreds of millions of years old. These tourmalines survived vast earth movements! As is typical here, most larger or matrix specimens have repairs, which I can accept in context of rarity and the environment. This piece has two clean repairs to the tourmaline itself (one in middle and one at the tip), and then the tourmaline is probably lock-fit repaired onto the quartz cluster (I can see a line under UV light, so I believe it is repaired but have not tested it). The piece has good color, easily visible in room lighting without the need for strong backlighting. That being said, a bit of backlighting intensifies the color and gives it the glow you see in our photos. It is a special piece, rare among quantity of other Himalaya Mine tourmalines for aesthetics and balance.