Doubly terminated Watermelon Tourmaline (New Find)

Item Description

An exotic looking large doubly terminated multi-hued tourmaline from a new find near the famous Golconda pegmatites. Both crystals are watermelons with pink cores, highly lustrous, glassy, gemmy to opaque and are very well striated. The large crystal has two dramatically different terminations. The watermelon pink core of the parallel-growth pinacoidal trigonal terminations runs for about 4.3 cm below the beautiful 5 mm indicolite-blue gemmy section beneath the very dark purple to black matte luster termination of the primary termination. The opposing termination is amazingly different, being a myriad of parallel-growth, mostly opaque teal-blue terminations with edge translucency. The stunningly angled side car crystal, 4.0 cm long, has a broken tip and is strikingly accented with a large 1.6 cm wide flat lepidolite crystal and a small section of another watermelon tourmaline. Complete all-around and in good shape. One side of the large crystal has two contacts, where other crystals once lay, but with very little damage, per se. There are additional small lepidolites attached to one side, as nice accessories. We have looked at the piece carefully for repairs as the work was done in Brazil and not by our lab contractor: The large crystal appears to have two clean repairs and the small crystal appears to have one clean repair. The repairs are certainly acceptable in the context of pegmatite species, especially large tourmalines, such as this. 140 grams mass. A sculptural, aesthetic and significant large watermelon tourmaline combination from the new find.