Tourmaline (circa 1960s)

Item Description

A remarkable and important green cap tourmaline from the famous Himalaya Mine of San Diego, with a thick and robust lime-green termination measuring about 1 cm thick, lustrous terminations; and that is complete all around. This was a surprise in the collection because I have looked at this tourmaline for literally decades since I had the honor to visit Jack in 1998, and assumed it was an Afghani specimen! One could not pick up the piece and see the label on bottom because of the earthquake-preventative, sticky blue putty on the bottom. However, now that it is with me and I see the labels... we find that it is a really dramatic, colorful OLD Himalaya Mine piece! I had also never looked at the backside, where you can see the telltale "bendy" pattern of stretched or curved tourmaline which is actually very characteristic of the Himalaya pegmatites, but not of the Afghan pegmatites. Moreover, you can, on turning it in the hand, see the fancy termination bevels which are also characteristic of many Himalaya green capped tourmalines, but not of Afghani pieces (which generally have sharp and either more flat or more equant terminations). Lastly, we see that Jack bought this from Louis Leite (in the 1980s), the well-known and completely trustworthy Portuguese dealer after whom Leiteite is named. Not only was this purchased before Afghan material became widely available in the 1990s, but Leite was very well known for purchasing old mineral collections in Europe and bringing them to the USA for sale at quite a good pace. So, we have an old Himalaya that went to Europe, came back, and ended up living in San Francisco for 40 years or so disguised as an Afghani piece on a crowded shelf. Looking back at the styles of Himalaya Mine tourmaline over the years, we can assume it to be from the 1960s or earlier mining by Ralph Potter, which produced some unusual styles compared to more modern material. Ralph mined here for over a decade, reviving old claims from the early 1900s; and his project produced, in particular, a number of green capped tourmalines that still remain among the best of their style. He found not so many gem pink and red tourmalines as were found in the Larson era after 1972, but the Himalaya was always unpredictable. On a side note, we do not believe this is from the early 1900s era because so few survived, and the condition of this piece is pristine and complete whereas specimens from the early 1900s era usually show a lot of damage. It might be from that era as specimens are known in old collections in the Smithsonian and CalTech; but we believe it more likely from the Potter era. For more on the amazing discoveries of the Ralph Potter era, we can refer you to this ultimate guide in GIA's journal Gems & Gemology; summer 1958: https://www.gia.edu/doc/summer_1958.pdf