Tourmaline

Unknown Owner

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Complete all around and with no damage, this tourmaline is literally like something out of an old museum, if you happened to get to see old King Mine pieces in a drawer from one of the oldest USA collections. It has a termination composed of many individual terminations, all well-formed and in good shape, atop a green-colored body. It is dark in room lighting, but still somewhat translucent when you hold it up. It glows when backlit well! This style is reminiscent of an old piece we had from the Bill Larson collection, in fact, which he had in turn gotten from an old collection. It simply is something you never see for sale. This is from modern mining at this ancient locality which once produced tourmaline for the Chinese Empress circa 1900, that went down by mule train to the docks at San Diego for export. A major specimen for the size, with no repairs, from 2023 season of mining. Few crystals this size are recovered with good terminations. At 421 grams, this is approximately 1 pound in weight.