Schorl on gneiss (ex Kay Robertson Collection)

Item Description

The famous Binntal (Binn Valley) right near the Swiss / Italian border is home to some of the most iconic minerals in Switzerland, along with some of the most beautiful Alpine minerals period. Specimens of Tourmaline have been reported over the years, but they are very hard to find. This piece hosts jet-black, thin, prismatic crystals of Schorl Tourmaline sitting on / in gneiss matrix. I have only seen a handful of these over the years, and if you collect worldwide Tourmalines, this is a great oddball locality to add to your collection. Ex Kay Robertson Collection (#9378). Kay is a prominent California collector, who specialized in European classics (see the article in the March-April, 2007 Mineralogical Record and the 50+ page article in the German Magazine "Mineralien Welt" November-December 2017).