This oval is eye clean and with fine crystal which is unusual for cuprian tourmaline from Mozambique. Its lavender color is lightly toned, but still a nice pastel that is well saturated. It weighs 5.13 carats.
The rough for the lightly toned lavender was cut from a large dark purplish red nodule that had been heated to lighten it. It would have probably gone completely light blue if the heating continued. The blue is from a low level of copper. Lavender, that is as well saturated as this stone has, is very rare in tourmaline and may even require copper as a chromophore with the reddish shades from manganese. This bright and eye clean oval weighs 5.13 carats. I purchased the rough for this oval before copper was discovered in gem quality tourmaline from Mozambique.
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 oval is eye clean and with fine crystal which is unusual for cuprian tourmaline from Mozambique. Its lavender color is lightly toned, but still a nice pastel that is well saturated. It weighs 5.13 carats.
