Brookite (incredibly rare faceted stone)

Item Description

Brookite as a species is not necessarily what most people would consider to be a rare species, but it's HIGHLY coveted among gemstone enthusiasts. Knowledgeable collectors will tell you that a good faceted Brookite is exceedingly rare to find on the market for two reason. First is that the very nature of Brookite crystals doesn't lend to much in the way of truly facettable material, as they are often incredibly thin (tabular) and sometimes dark or opaque. Even if you find one thick enough to cut, Brookite is rather brittle, so a stone can break in the middle of the faceting process, rendering it useless. In the early 2000s, some of the finest Brookite crystals in the world started coming out of the Balochistan Province in Pakistan. These crystals were not only large and colorful, but in some instances, they were thick enough to yield faceted gems! We were fortunate to get our hands on a few faceted stones from a good friend in Peshawar earlier this year, and we're excited to give everybody the opportunity to acquire one of these highly coveted gems for your collection. This stone when backlit shows a rich burnt orange hue with excellent clarity. The stone understandably has a very shallow and narrow "cushion" cut, but you take what you can get with this material. I've only seen a handful of faceted Brookites over the years, and they were all black/opaque, so the fact that this stone has COLOR (when backlit), is significant. Don't miss out on this one, as we will have only a handful to offer in the auctions, and our friend overseas tells us that he doesn't expect to have any more faceted material in the future. For reference, I saw a dealer in Tucson this year who had two of these stones at the AGTA show priced at $3,000 per carat.