Tourmaline (unique locality stone)

Item Description

This is a really cool stone from San Diego County, California (no specific mine was given). It's a big gem that would be a wonderful match for a crystal from the area, to create a cool "rough and cut" set, or simply left on its own as a special stone from this famous Tourmaline-producing area. The stone is essentially a single crystal that was artfully faceted on all sides, preserving the overall shape of the crystal, but giving it a unique appearance at the same time. The colors range from a soft pink hue on one end to yellowish-greens and soft blue-green shades throughout the rest of the stone. It weighs an impressive 25.04 carats, and was valued at $2,504.00 retail.
This gem comes to us from the legendary Ron Romanella (February 28, 1932 - October 24, 2022), a well-known gem and mineral dealer from New York City. He studied mineralogy at Columbia School of Mines, and was mentored by Dr. Frederick Pough of the American Museum of Natural History. Ron learned about the business side of minerals from well-known dealers Hugh Ford and Maurice Hammoneau. Ron himself was a mentor to other successful East Coast mineral dealers such as Larry Conklin, Herb Obodda and even employed Dave Wilber for a time. He largely transitioned out of selling minerals as his business focused more on gems for the last few decades, and his sons Michael and Jerry have been running the family business in Scottsdale for many years now. With that said, Ron was one of the great powerhouse mineral dealers in the US for many years, offering fine quality specimens and gem crystals from classic and contemporary localities. Among his top achievements, is that Ron is credited with importing the first known crystals of Tanzanite into the US in the 1960s.