Tourmaline (polished slice)

Item Description

A superb big polished Tourmaline slice from the Anjanabonoina pegmatites in Madagascar. The piece is complete all around with no chips or breaks on the periphery and when backlit, it shows a beautiful mixture of colors with deep olive green shade on the outermost edges, transitioning into a lighter greenish-yellow triangular section, that shows shades of a gentle blue-green with thin lines of a more stark green hue directly in the middle. It should be noted that for years these specimens were labeled as Liddicoatite, which is a valid species, but it's possible that they are Fluor-Liddicoatite and recent research has shown that these specimens actually contain more than one species, which can only be identified by XRD and WDS analysis in order to determine their identity, it can't be done visually. With that said, we'll leave this only simply as Tourmaline, and it's a fantastic example of these big and impressive slices that are typically only seen from Madagascar. Specimen weight is 140.5 grams.
It's important to note that this is not a contemporary specimen as Jack's label states it was part of the Carl Bosch Collection from the Smithsonian!
From the collection of Jack Halpern No. 1055. Jack was born May 18, 1920 in Brooklyn, New York, but has been a long-time resident of San Francisco. He assembled one of the great mineral collections in the world encompassing over 3,200 specimens with a specific emphasis on color, quality, and style/aesthetics, which is evident in every piece. He admired specimens of all sizes from thumbnails to large cabinets and the vast majority of them rank from fine to world-class in their quality.
Above all else, Jack is considered to be the greatest gentleman in the modern era of mineral collecting. He is beloved by all those who have met him, and he truly is one of the most iconic figures in the mineral world. We recently acquired Jack's collection, and the VAST majority of these pieces will be offered here in the auctions, as we feel that everyone deserves and equal opportunity at acquiring these important, well-documented and fine quality pieces for their collections. We are honored to have the opportunity to offer Jack's treasures to everyone on a regular basis in the auctions.
We encourage you to read our blog post at https://www.irocks.com/the-jack-halpern-collection or his profile on the Mineralogical Record website https://mineralogicalrecord.com/biographies_labels/halpernjack/ for more information