This oval was actually the first Laurellite that I cut. It is not as colorful as her sister #944, since her color change goes from purple to more of a grayed blue, but she set me up to take action when the cleaner and more colorful #944 appeared over a year later. Since I have posted about the excitement and history of Laurellite in other posts, I will limit this post to describing her.
The oval has some issues with crystal, but no major feathers of inclusions. She has a somewhat flatter crown than normal, which works well with her medium tone level. There is a reddish area that can best be seen from the pavilion, that is the residual of the radiation burn that originally cover the crystal. It has the appearance of a plume, when looked at with a loop. It weighs 5.37 carats.
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.
