This standard round brilliant has a medium dark tone level in a gray with flashes of blue. It appears to be eye clean except for a slight amount of damage next to the girdle. It weighs carats.
The purchase of the rough for this standard round brilliant shows a bit more discipline on my part than my earlier days. The dealer had gotten a lot of a tourmaline with a different color that is never stated. It is stated that he had not seen such a color in tourmaline for a long time. The rough was not expensive and he a few larger pieces and decent number of average sized pieces. The pictures show something that might be considered blue purple, but if you looked closely, you could see that the reddish part of the stone was radiation burn. Radiation burn comes from oxidizing manganese threw natural irradiation and appears as a skin on the outside of the crystal. The tone level of the rough also looked quite high. So, instead of purchasing the biggest piece and draining the budget like I probably would of in the old days in my quest for blue purple, I just got a decent sized piece of rough for its color alone.
Well I am glade I didn’t put more money into this tourmaline. The finished standard round brilliant has a medium dark toned gray with flashes of blue color. It is too dark for a larger stone and there is no hint of red left in my stone to make a purple to go with the blue. I am pleased that I got this 1.68 carat stone because it is a bit different and fine for the collection, but there are bigger more rewarding hills to climb. The round appears to be eye clean except for a small amount of damage to an area next to the girdle.
Bruce
