Imperial Topaz (rare locality)

Item Description

The most famous Imperial Topaz crystals in the world are the old the classics from Ouro Preto, Brazil. These pieces have been on the market for many decades and set the standard for the material in terms of size, color, quality, etc. Surprisingly in 2009, we started seeing some new exciting and beautiful Imperial Topaz crystals coming out of Zambia which was an unexpected discovery to say the least. At this year's Tucson Show we acquired a small parcel from a good friend who owns a claim in Zambia and is actively mining this material, and literally just took these out of the ground less than a year ago. They are notably similar to their famous and historic counterparts crystals from Ouro Preto in both color and habit, but I can say that some of these Zambian crystals are actually gemmier than many I've seen from Brazil. The reason you don't see any many gem quality Brazilian crystals is because a large percentage of them are faceted into gemstones, but our friend in Zambian didn't want to butcher good crystals, so we were fortunate to get some pieces like this with excellent gemminess. This piece is a fine, sharp, lustrous, lovely orange color prismatic crystal with good overall gemminess in areas. The piece has a classic "chisel"-shaped termination just like the Brazilian crystals. The piece is complete all around with only one thin contacted edge. A great example of these attractive and interesting pieces from this limited discovery.