Tourmaline (ex Brian Lloyd)

Item Description

This specimen was labeled as simply "Tourmaline" from "Catherinburgh, Russia". It is most likely Schorl due to the color, but it's hard to say without analysis. It features stark black trigonal crystals measuring up to 1.0 cm sitting on blocky, iron-stained Feldspar matrix. The locality itself is essentially useless, and the name "Catherinburgh" / Yekaterinburg / Ekaterinburg was thrown on to labels years ago, but no actual mining was taking place in the area. Most likely the specimens were PURCHASED in or around Yekaterinburg, and no further locality information was provided. The piece could possibly be from Sarapulka (Murzinka), but it's only a guess. It's an interesting reference piece for any Tourmaline collector. The piece comes from Brian Lloyd of London, one of the preeminent European mineral dealers. Among other accomplishments, Brian was responsible for bringing the Sir Robert Ferguson collection to market, along with the Joseph Neeld collection (1789-1856) in 1974 and the historic gold collection of H.S. Gordon. Brian famously purchased the historic dealership formerly known as J.R. Gregory & Company - today known as Gregory, Bottley & Lloyd. The catalogue number on this specimen is 482.