Tourmaline (old crystal)

Item Description

A cool old time specimen of Brazilian Tourmaline. The piece comes with an historic label from the legendary mineral dealer, Hugh A. Ford. Since the label has Ford's New York address it dates to 1946-1957, and it's labeled as "Figueira, Minas Gerais, Brazil", but I can't find a listing for this locality in any database. The label states that the crystal is dark green, but I put a high-intensity light behind it, and it's opaque and black as far as I can tell. It does have highly lustrous striated prismatic faces and a notably steep pyramidal termination. Very minor damage, and a great example of crystallized Tourmaline from any locality. From an old East Coast collection, and certainly a great glimpse into the past as to the kind of Tourmalines that were coming out of Brazil 60-70 years ago.