Tourmaline (uncommon locality specimen)

Item Description

This is a wonderful, rare old-time specimen from the famous Little Three Mine in San Diego County. It was collected circa 1960s-1970s. This locality is famous for producing the best blue Topaz crystals from anywhere in San Diego County along with vivid orange Spessartines, but this is a much rarer and desirable crystal of multi-colored. This thumbnail sized specimen is a sharp, well-formed, lustrous prismatic crystal free of matrix. On the surface, the color might look like a dark green hue, but when it's backlit, you can see the crystal is not only gemmy, but shows several hues, with a light yellow-green tone on the upper portion, that transitions into a thin band of rich blue-green, then into a darker olive-green and nearly black color at the core. The piece is in great shape, with no damage I can find with the naked eye (outside of the base where it detached from the pocket wall). A fine quality must-have for any fan of pegmatite minerals, Tourmalines, thumbnail or specimens from the famous Little Three Mine.
From the collection of Bill Larson of Fallbrook, California. Bill is a well-known gem and mineral dealer as well as a miner and collector. Bill is synonymous with minerals of San Diego County, and owned and operated famous mines such as the Stewart Lithia, the Tourmaline Queen, the Pala Chief and the Himalaya, producing some of the most iconic mineral specimens to come out of the area during the 1970s-1980s. Bill is also known as "Burma Bill" and traveled the world for decades in search of fine gems and minerals, and was directly involved in the in-person acquisition and importation of superb specimens and stones from Myanmar (Burma). You can read his biography at https://mineralogicalrecord.com/biographies_labels/larsonwilliam-f/