Tourmaline (acicular) ex. Lavinsky Coll.

Item Description

This is a bizarre oddball tourmaline from some unusual finds in the late 1980s. It is "hairy" for lack of abetter word, with a normal, typical, dark green body that suddenly transforms into a hairlike nest of acicular crystals atop. I should not use the word nest, though, because this implies disorder - the crystals ARE acicular and discrete. They do shoot up vertically on the correct crystal axis. It is just that the fibers did not merge, somehow, to form a normal termination encompassing all of them. Photos cannot convey how sparkly this termination is - like a cluster of fiber-optic cables all emanating light. It is not dark and boring at all, but rather very bright and showy in a case. This is one of the biggest of the group as I recall seeing them. I bought the piece from Frank and Wendy Melanson in the late 1980s at the Cincinnati show. I recall this clearly because for me, at the time, to comtemplate spending $600 on a specimen was a lot of money and I had to save up my trading area dollars to use to purchase it. But it was one of the best of the pocket they had and it just spoke to me. Had to have it. When I sold my worldwide collection to pay for college in the early 90s, this went quickly and now I have it back. Valued $1500-2000. It is not worth a fortune, but it is so darned interesting that I never forgot it.