This beautiful gemstones is a Barion cushion and has great crystal and appears to be eye clean. Its darker toned green has just a touch of blue, that I call spruce. It weighs 9.52 carats.
This cushion cut, which is a Barion, meet point design, partially developed by Mr. Graham, is one of the few more “modern” designs I use when cutting tourmaline. I am a strong believer in simple traditional cuts and I add newer designs only when I feel they enhance yield or the dynamic interplay of tourmaline’s colors. The mixing of the principal axis (c) color with the other two axis (a and b) lighter color is why I cut this spruce green tourmaline in a cushion rather than an emerald cut. The principle draw back to the cut is the need to have a thick crystal to use it on, especially if you use Mr. Graham’s original crown angles. Of course you will also need a tourmaline with “open ends”, i.e. good transparency looking down the c axis (usually the longer, darker axis) of the crystal.
The photograph clearly shows the lighter a/b color radiating up and down in the gemstone. Closer examination shows that the agreeable colors in this stone are nicely mixed threw out most of the gemstone. The step cut crown gives me great control of the crown’s thickness, that is simple to cut and produces remarkably bright stones.
If there is any color that tourmaline completely covers from the blue end to the yellow end it is green. The eye is very sensitive to differences in green and tourmaline caters to that ability extremely well. Therefore it is a pleasure to say that this gemstone is just a little bit different and earned its description of spruce, only after a significant period of deliberation. It is a pretty classy tourmaline that just would not have made it up the social ladder without the cut.
Bruce
