The medium dark oval is quite transparent for its dark tone. It is eye clean and with excellent crystal. It was probably heat treated to produce the gray with a touch of brown color. It weighs 6.09 carats.
This gray with a touch of brown is quite transparent for its darker tone value. It came from Thailand and was probably heat treated. I have enough similar material to feel that this color and saturation occurs in nature, but it is not that common. I am always on the look out for good natural grays, even though I don”t think that you can tell a heated one from a natural one. I just like to stay natural, when I can. This oval is eye clean and weighs 6.09 carats.
Bruce
About Bruce Fry
I was born in Summit, NJ in 1947 and graduated from Summit High School in 1966. I graduated from the Colorado School of Mines in 1970 and after spending another year in graduate school, I left to see the world of Brazil. After spending some more time discovering myself, I ended up working for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania for 32 years as an Air Quality Engineer in the Department of Environmental Protection. I retired in 2007 and took up faceting gemstones again after a long hiatus that reached back to my twenties. I had started cutting cabochons when I was 13 and bought my first faceting machine when I was 15, but ran out of money and time until I retired.
My great love in gemology is tourmaline and the collection presented here represents my effort to get as much beauty and variety in the colors of tourmaline as I can. I was particularly lucky in being able to get unheated cuprian tourmaline before copper was discovered in gem grade tourmaline from Mozambique.
The medium dark oval is quite transparent for its dark tone. It is eye clean and with excellent crystal. It was probably heat treated to produce the gray with a touch of brown color. It weighs 6.09 carats.
