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What is Cuprian Tourmaline
I have been thinking about this quite a bit lately because of opportunities to sell some stone and the need to price them. The pricing of top quality gemstones is always a problem because subtle differences between stones can lead to quite a bit of difference in...
Pleochroism, Dichroism and Tourmaline
Tourmaline is not the most dichroic gemstone of all gemstones or in fact intrinsically dichroic at all. I prefer to use dichroic rather than pleochroic because tourmaline can only express two colors in a crystal that are based on different axis of the crystal. I...
Search and research, an on going adventure.
I have had an interest in rocks and minerals for as long as I can remember, but I really did not get into tourmaline until I started faceting at the age of fifteen. My parents had gotten me a big chemistry set for Christmas and my mother had concerns. I was having too...
Inclusions in Tourmaline
Collectors and lovers of tourmaline should be tolerant of inclusion in tourmaline to appreciate the full glory of tourmaline color. This opinion has grown up over the years of cutting tourmaline, in part out of necessity and in part out of a growing appreciation of...
Durability of tourmaline in jewelery. Truth or Opinion?
I have pretty strong feelings about setting tourmaline in jewelery. I read on the internet over and over again that tourmaline has a hardness between 7 and 7.5 on the mohe’s scale. That just means that it is relatively harder than quart/sand, which is enough when it...
Cyan color, Paraiba, Paraiba-like, Paraiba Type and the Neon Glow
When Paraiba from Brazil first hit the market in the late 1980s and was accepted as a natural beauty, many attempts were made to stretch English to express the wonderment of its beauty. Its hue/color was compared to Windex blue, electric blue etc. and its visual...
A Tourmaline Tale of Sad and Glad
by My Lady Pink This report is an attempt to bring the excitement and drama of a youtube video that went viral just a couple of days ago to a wider less connected audience. It focuses on the cutter’s behavior and its impact on an innocent Indicolite, who is the...
Gold in Paraiba Tourmaline, NO WAY!
With the advent of modern methods of non destructive/semi non destructive such as LA_ICP MS (Laser Ablation, Induction Coupled Plasma, Mass Spectrometer) the trace element chemistry of tourmaline has become much more accessible. Elements such as lead and the rare...
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