This beautiful gray is unfortunately unstable and now has a faint flaw one half of the way across the stone. It is still quite a display stone since it has plenty of presences. It weighs 4.73 carats.
I was once looking threw a list of gemstones and their colors presented by the Gem Institute of America GIA. I always like to see which colors are not included in the list of colors for tourmaline. The most notable, this time, was gray. Now I know that gray will never be among the top ten hit for color in any gemstone, but I think it can be beautiful.
This standard round brilliant has a great pure gray that is the best in the collection. I am sure that it is not just a heated something else that got cooked too long. It does seem to float around between a bit of a bluish cast to a bit of a brownish cast depending on the light. Now that we have savored the glory of this stone, I need to tell its dark side.
I started out cutting a shield cut from this really bright, glassy, eye clean piece of crystal. The points began to break and then a razor thin flaw began to propagate into the heart of my gray. I took the strongest action I could and ground the triangular semi-finished shape into a round. The crack continued and is now about one half of the way across the crystal. It is not reflective and looks like a thin, dark, rather wavy line. Still my gray is unstable, but worth finishing as a great example of a tourmaline color that is appreciated only by a select group of color addicts like me. It weighs a much reduced 4.73 carts.
Bruce
