This orange pink brown oval is clean and weighs 9.59 carats. Earth tone is a nice new name for it, traditionally it would be called a dravite. It has minimal dichroism which makes for a bright open stone.
This very nice, eye clean, larger oval with great crystal is in search of a name. Older tourmaline lovers, that have been around a crystal/gem or two would call it dravite. This is because dravite is a trade name for brownish tourmaline. Dravite, the trade name, was derived from Dravite, a species of tourmaline that can come in brown, but does not have to. The final straw is that most of the brownish tourmaline in the world is Elbate a related mineral to Dravite and the most common species of tourmaline found in gems. Since dravite is old/dated and perhaps confusing I will try and describe the gemestone’s color. It is an orange/brown with some pink depending on the light. Sort of like old salmon. Now people selling tourmaline would say that the name stunk and I know it sounds a little fishy, but what is a simple cutter expect to do. Now East Africa has been producing some really pretty tourmaline browns and creative people who know 50 cent words are calling them spicy names like cinnamon and nutmeg. Now I have some of those East African browns in the collection and I like the names (my favorite is actually Mahogany), but the rich pastel look of this gemstone just doesn’t seem to fit. So I waited until out of the poet’s mouth came “earth tones”. And there you have it, a great name and a great stone for someone who does not want to shout, but blend in with the organic whole of the earth. This brown orange oval weighs 9.59 carats.
Bruce
