This Barion cushion weighs 10.47 carats. It has a nice medium blue color and is moderately included with a significant feather. It has copper, but not the neon look. #961
This is an interesting stone. I bought it after my supply of cuprian tourmaline had pretty much dried up. I continued to buy the smaller more included cuprian material that became remained available, because I am always looking for different color and cuprian is different. The rough for this stone was one of the bigger pieces of cuprian I was able to get recently. It was not particularly expensive because it had major feathers, one of which is still rather prominent in the gemstone. On top of that it has a good field of inclusions. After looking the rough over I decided to just go for the biggest stone I could get while keeping the feather, that must remain, as vertical to the table as possible. I didn’t think that the rest of the scatter would make much difference. I put my full measure of devotion into the included stone and cut a Barion cushion with a full three step crown.
Now what came out of this effort. The Barion cushion is bright and flashy and none of the flaws have a distracting flash. The feather can be seen under part of the table principally because of some areas of heaver white inclusions. The blue color is a good medium pastel that very much reminds me of some Afghanistan material I have cut. Though it can not come from Afghanistan because this stone contains copper as a chromophore. I verified that fact with my spectrometer.
So I now have a well cut, moderately included Barion cushion that has a good medium pastel blue color and I did not even pay an arm and a leg for it. What is missing from this picture of great value discovered in a modest stone. This cuprian blue lacks the “neon” look that sets quality Paraiba and, paraiba type material apart from the also ran. This lack of the “neon” look is not limited to some Mozambique material. A reliable source reported a much ballyhooed genuine Paraiba that he was able to see at the large show in Tucson also did not have “it”. Without the “neon” look, which is impossible to photograph, color along can/should not demand exorbitant prices in most cases. I have to qualify that last idea, because I have seen pure well cut emerald cuts of a cyan blue from Afghanistan, in a high end dealers inventory. I did not have to ask, to know that they were expensive. He told his clients that they did not contain copper and I verified that with my spectrometer. On top of that they did not have the visual presence (neon) look that a quality piece of cuprian tourmaline would of presented, but they did have the right color. (the color comes from iron)
The posted stone weighs 10.47 carats.
Bruce
