Schorl showing curving crystal growth, on Albite

Item Description

At first, you just see a REALLY BIG matrix schorl specimen here, but when you hold it in your hand it just gets more and more interesting! This large and complete all around display piece from the famous Gene Meieran collection was kept by him because it is not so much a sexy tourmaline for the usual standards and metrics of color and sparkle; but because it is so interesting in form. The piece features a crystal about 5 inches long, showing what is often called a tectonic bending, a strange result of "bending" as it grew in the pocket from whatever violent processes shaped this as it formed in a deep and hot pocket of fluids under high pressure, 100 million years ago. This "bendy" tourmaline is something we see rarely in large crystals as, since you can imagine, they form in unusual processes. At 5 inches, this is one of the largest such crystals I have seen and it has no repairs, as well Gene established perhaps the world's largest suite of diverse Afghani and Pakistani minerals during their heyday, primarily in the 1980s-2020 or so. His collection is representative of the best production near surface as the mines really started to be opened in the 1980s-90s. It is specimens like this, that beg questions of the viewer, that make this a collection rather than an accumulation; and to which my eye always gravitates when looking at such pieces. Hard to value, but we believe $4000-5000 is a reasonably fair valuation here.