This shield cut can not help, but come clean. It has nothing to hide except for maybe a drift toward green in artificial light. Still it is a natural pastel blue, but not a baby blue. It probably has a touch of gray, that reminds at least one person I know, of blue diamond. I myself have not seen examples of pastel blue diamonds except in books, so it is hard for me to say. I would probably have to call this an indicolite (trade name for blue tourmaline) but it has such a different feel from most indicolites, that I like to think of this type of clear uniform pastel blue as a different group. But to make the nomenclature of tourmaline more complex would have to have a real need, not a minor preference, because it is already (too?) complex. This exceptional gemstone has the full three step crown and the lovely play of flash, of a triangular cut. It weighs a healthy 4.41 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.
