I can see why I have cut a number of shield cuts from this tone level of blue. It makes a beautiful pastel shield cut because the blue is not dichroic. Now I think dichroicism in tourmaline can be great, but not in this cut, unless you can get the table perpendicular to the c axis. So without dichroism why did I title this post as a gemstone with dynamic color. Well it is a shifter. The blue in natural light has a good grayed blue, but that old yellowish light makes it rather greener and grayer. It is not its best side. When I label stones with a color you have to go with natural color, but you maybe disappointed if you don’t do your homework with different light sources, before you bring one home.
This really sharp little shield cut, is eye clean with good crystal. It weighs 1.73 carats and would need a custom setting because there are practically not commercial settings available for shield cuts.
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.
