This is a very expensive gemstone per carat. It is a blue GEM from Namibia and they produce the best blues in tourmaline outside of cuprian.
It is pure and sweet.
I was able to buy a nice sized lot of very good blue Namibia tourmaline before my source dried up and prices climbed to ridiculous heights. I am reminded of how fortunate I was when I checked out this BLUE oval for the first time in a long time. It was buried in a tray of pretty average greens that my son organized after the last Carnegie Museum show.
This gemstone has everything it needs to be a GEM. For those who like blue this will make you happy. This flawless GEM weighs 2.26 carats.
Bruce
About Bruce Fry
I was born in Summit, NJ in 1947 and graduated from Summit High School in 1966. I graduated from the Colorado School of Mines in 1970 and after spending another year in graduate school, I left to see the world of Brazil. After spending some more time discovering myself, I ended up working for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania for 32 years as an Air Quality Engineer in the Department of Environmental Protection. I retired in 2007 and took up faceting gemstones again after a long hiatus that reached back to my twenties. I had started cutting cabochons when I was 13 and bought my first faceting machine when I was 15, but ran out of money and time until I retired.
My great love in gemology is tourmaline and the collection presented here represents my effort to get as much beauty and variety in the colors of tourmaline as I can. I was particularly lucky in being able to get unheated cuprian tourmaline before copper was discovered in gem grade tourmaline from Mozambique.
This is a very expensive gemstone per carat. It is a blue GEM from Namibia and they produce the best blues in tourmaline outside of cuprian.
It is pure and sweet.
Bruce, how is Nambian tourmaline identified? I bought a piece in the late 1980s but
lost the index card from the source. I believe it was from Nambia, but it was so long ago I can’t remember now. It has a purple base, a blue body, and a green tip with tiny
particles of mica(?) on the termination. The termination also has strange “etchings”
on it, and it looks like a step-pyramid.
(The pics are available at Gemology Online. I am paraibaesque there as well. Or just
google “26 gram tourmaline” and you will see a fantastic blue crystal with a green tip)