This bright clean shield cut (4.29 carats) reminds me of Pad a variety of sapphire and is not a very valued member of the different tourmaline's tribes of color.
Now one of the reasons to spend time showing my collection is to let people see the beauty of tourmaline and for me, to get this “semi” precious gemstone some respect. Now the color of this nice sized (4.29 carat) shield cut gets very little respect in my book. At least one “authority” in the past declared the oranges did not occur naturally (you can irradiate tourmaline to make it orange) in tourmaline. I think with the opening of the wonderful world of tourmaline in Africa, that has been proven to be in error.
Now I have called tourmaline the jester of gems because of its ability to appear to be other gemstones. In this case the clean bright flashy orange/peach has enough pink to bring to mind Pad. Now Pad is an abbreviation for an endless name of a color that comes from certain seeds and is associated with sapphire. This color of sapphire rough has traditionally been found in Ceylon. I can neither spell or pronounce the confounded word, but it sure is expensive when it is in corundum (the mineral name for all colors of sapphire and ruby).
If peach/pink tourmaline got even one tenth the price of Pad per carat, that would be a real respect builder. People might even think that the tourmaline was more “beautiful” since beauty has to have a large cost associated with it. Right? If I sound put out, I am.
Bruce
