Purple-capped Tourmaline & Cleavelandite

Item Description

Purple-caps are the rarest color of tourmaline from Afghanistan, and for that matter are not known from any other locality in the size found here, so rarely. Stewart Mine or King Mine purples, old material, tend to be dark and narrow bands only. This deposit has, though, produced very few pieces like this which have more broad and translucent purple caps. The main crystal here is 5 x 2.5 x 2.3 cm in size, and shoots traight up from its matrix associations of bladed cleavelandite, purple lepidolite, and a broken, but accenting, crystal of horizontally-placed tourmaline. The main crystal termination is freestanding and exposed, complete all around! it is enveloped by attached cleavelandite and lepidolite, but not so much that they occlude the tourmaline - and just enough to acent it and contrast its color. Overall a sueprb, aesthetic, rarely colored tourmaline matrix specimen, valued $4000-5000. ex Gene Meieran collection. 379 grams