Another Achroite Challange in the Round#1078

 

I have never tried to describe so many different colors in tourmaline at one time before.  My inconsistencies on the official boxes that protect them and keep them ordered is a bit disconcerting.  Didn’t I try to spend that extra time with the newly completed additions to the collection that they deserved?  Have I failed as a cutter?  Will I be sued for violation of the covenant?   Enough soul searching, because this bright, eye clean round holds at least part of the truth.  It has clear on the box, a tired way of saying achroite, and even such a pale stone shifted color and tone level on me, as I looked at it under a yellowish light verse daylight. Now I will stay with clear because natural light is the determiner, but its other persona is a tea richer than some, just reviewed, that are obviously not an achroite.  I think I just said it again, in a different way.  To really appreciate many tourmaline you have to live with the gemstone.  Take it for a walk or to the grocery store etc., but don’t buy it in a jewelry story and expect it to look just like it did there, when you get home.   Oh and by the way, setting gemstones can be a color adventure also.  This standard round brilliant weighs 4.11 carats and I have its number now.

Bruce

 

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.
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