A trilliant cut blue tourmaline (Indicollite) from Afghanistan. It weights 4.28 carats and has a rich velvety quality about it. It is not clean, but the rich saturated color completely hides the inclusions to the eye.
Now the internet has points that transcend just a way to quickly try and buy faceting rough. This site for example. I did write for another site for a while and got to meet some interesting people. I hope to do the same thing here. But one of the best things that happen on the internet was an opportunity to get a piece of very rare rich blue tourmaline rough from Afghanistan. I was given the opportunity by a kind dealer and cutter who felt that I would greatly appreciate the material and I do. I am also pleased that I had the resources to buy it.
The rough that came has a great rich blue and should be called Indicolite without doubt. No green or gray tones here. It had a general triangular outline and had inclusion toward the edges of the rough, but a good clean heart. The roughs tone level was high and the rich color with a great saturation would tend to hide any imperfections as long as they did not flash anyway.
Now I decided to use the trilliant style cut. I don’t use it that much since I prefer the shield cut for triangular stones, but I needed a thin cut for such a dark stone and the rough was not very deep for its width. The trilliant’s table would be perpendicular to the c axis and produce a nice consistent color in the stone.
Now what I got when I finish cutting it is rather a bemusing 4.26 carat gemstone. It seems to lack the degree of transparency that I expected. The stone does have quiet flash of lighter blue in a field of rich velvety blue, but the center of the stone is much quieter than I would have expected. I would not call this stone flashy. I don’t think that any residual inclusion, they are more toward the edges of the gemstone and don’t impact the beauty of the stone, are responsible for the lack of transparency, but something is. The angles I used were all reasonable.
With that wonderment out of the way, it is a great addition to the collection and I am thankful to get it. Without help this collection could not have been gathered together.
Bruce
