Tourmaline (fantasy cut by Brett Kosnar)

Item Description

Tourmaline is a wildly popular gemstone, beloved for its wide range of colors and larger than average sized stones. It's also one of the few naturally bi-colored and/or multi-colored stones as well. It's the birthstone for October, along with Opal. Interestingly, Tourmaline has been known for centuries, but it 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. Here we have a beautiful "Oval" cut gem with virtually eye-clean clarity and a lovely green color, but what makes it really special is the fact that it has a "Fantasy" cut. This style of cutting is where the underside/pavilion/culet area of the gem has actually been carved to create beautiful geometric patterns, freeform designs or unique shapes that are seldom seen in any colored stones on the market today. The gem was cut by Brett Kosnar of Kosnar Gem Co., who is a 4-time AGTA Spectrum Award winning gem cutter. A really special and beautiful one-of-a-kind stone for any fan of Tourmalines. It would make a great center stone for a pendant or a ring, or as an addition to your gem collection. Again, I will point out that this stone is virtually eye-clean, which is quite 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, so when you find a stone like this, it's a big deal. This gem was priced at $495.00 retail.