Tourmaline (unusual style for the locality)

Item Description

There are many localities in San Diego County that have produced iconic Tourmaline speicmens, and the famous Himalaya Mine is certainly in the top tier. This locality is famous for its beautiful pink and green crystals, but it also produced a good number of "unusual" crystals as well. This piece is a very attractive, classic, gemmy, lustrous, striated, prismatic crystal with unusually narrow multiple terminations and an odd color combination with soft pink and green hues. The lower half of the crystal has a soft straw color, rarely seen in crystals from this mine. The upper portion of the crystal has a distinct "cat's eye" effect, which is not unheard of from the Himalaya Mine, but certainly not common. This is a really interesting esoteric piece that would make a fine addition to any Tourmaline suite, a gem crystal collection, or a collection of minerals from either San Diego County or specifically the Himalaya Mine. I value this one in the $2,500-$3,000 range retail. The piece weighs 96.0 grams, and originally came from the collection of Bill Larson, who owned and operated the Himalaya Mine for years.