Tourmaline (multi-color doubly-terminated crystal)

Item Description

The Himalaya Mine in San Diego County, California is a famous Tourmaline locality, one of the most well-known in North America. This historic mine produced some of the most iconic, eye-catching and colorful Tourmaline specimens in the world. This specimen is a beautiful, sharp, lustrous, gemmy, attractive multi-color, doubly-terminated "floater" crystal featuring very dark brown (virtually black) hues on both ends, featuring a strong almost "chrome green" band which transitions into a zone of a pale yellowish-pink hue, and then a silvery-green zone throughout the rest of the crystal. When the piece is backlit, the colors really stand out. I can't say for sure which pocket this piece is from, but I'll bet that there are Himalaya experts out there who might know. Both of the terminations have some interrupted growth, but no real damage I can see. A classic small cabinet sized representative gem crystal from this historic locality. Specimen weight is 99.02 grams. Valued at $2,500.
This piece comes from the personal collection of Colorado mining legend, Dave Bergman, the maternal grandfather of Brian Kosnar. Dave is now retired from mining, but he worked for decades in various mines underground in Colorado, as a miner, mechanic, engineer, shift boss and foreman. His biggest claim to fame is that he was the foreman and the primary person in charge of mining and specimen recovery at the Sweet Home Mine in Colorado in the 1970s alongside his son-in-law, Rich Kosnar. This project what was the FIRST ever operation for specimen recovery at this historic locality. A full-page photograph of Dave can be seen mining underground at the Sweet Home in on page 58 of Peter Bancroft's book "Gem and Crystal Treasures".