Tourmaline (doubly-terminated crystal) (ex Dave Bergman Collection)

Item Description

A wonderful miniature specimen from this famous Tourmaline locality in San Diego County. Some of the most iconic Tourmalines from any US locality have come from this mine. This piece is a fine, sharp, lustrous, doubly-terminated "floater" Tourmaline crystal featuring multi-terminated pyramidal points on one end, and a basal termination on the other end. The color is mostly pink, but small areas of light golden and green hues can be seen as well. The thin points on the terminations have a slight "cat's eye" effect when rotated in the light, and if you look closely, you can see that they are ever so slightly bent, which is often seen from this locality. A small soft lavender colored crystal of "Lepidolite" can be seen near the termination for a nice touch. No damage anywhere, and it's a lovely example of these famous old crystals from the 1970s. The specimen weight is 4.79 grams. Ex Dave Bergman Collection. Dave is a Colorado miner (formerly the foreman and primary person in charge of recovering specimens at the famous Sweet Home Mine near Alma, Colorado during the late 1970s) and the maternal grandfather of Brian Kosnar. See Dave's photo mining at the Sweet Home on page 58 of Peter Bancroft's book "Gem and Crystal Treasures". The piece was given to Dave as a gift by his son-in-law, Rich Kosnar in June of 1984 and the hand-written label from Kosnar accompanies the piece.