Tourmaline

Item Description

Tourmaline gems are highly colorful and popular stones, and notably sought after on the market today. Interestingly, Tourmaline has been known for centuries, but it actually wasn't fully identified until the 1800s. This is because Spanish explorers in the 1500s mistook green Tourmaline found in Brazil for Emerald, and it remained misidentified for a few hundred years. The irony is that black Tourmaline (Schorl) had been well-known in Europe, but it took mineralogists quite a bit of time to realize that the colorful gemmy crystals were part of the same mineral group as the opaque black crystals. This stone is a wonderful "Rectangle" cut gem with very very slight inclusions and a lovely green color. I will note that finding a virtually eye-clean stone is rare for Tourmaline because they are classified as "Type-3" gemstones, which means that inclusions are almost always present, and accepted by dealers and collectors.