Tourmaline (rare "nail head" habit!) on Quartz (ex Rich Kosnar Collection)

Item Description

A rarely seen Tourmaline specimen to be sure. This piece comes from the Richard Kosnar collection, who obtained the piece from noted Colorado dealer, Dudley Blauwet in 1999. The piece feautres a pair of dark colored (there is a very slight silvery-purplish hue that can be seen with strong backlighting), prismatic crystals of Tourmaline which are flaring out of a very gemmy, colorless Quartz crystal. The most interesting aspect to the specimen is the fact that the Tourmaline crystals have a rarely seen secondry overgrowth of Tourmaline on the terminations, creating a unique "nail head" appearance! There are actually a few smaller Tourmalines with the same overgrowths that are partially frozen inside the Quartz crystal. Lastly, there are few white Feldspar crystals attached to the base of the Quartz for a nice touch. I have only seen a few Tourmaline specimens like this, and if you're a Tourmaline collector, you cannot afford to pass this one up, as it is a very interesting novelty specimen! I cannot say for certain which species of Tourmaline this is, and it may be possible that there are multiple species present, e.g., Elbaite, Schorl, Rossmanite, Foitite, like specimens from Elba in Italy.