Purple Cuprian; A dilemma:
By Richard W. Wise, G.G.
©2006
“I know what you're thinking. Did he fire six shots or only five? Well, to tell you the truth, in all this excitement, I've kinda lost track myself. But being as this is a .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world, and would blow your head clean off, you've got to ask yourself one question: Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya punk?”
Clint Eastwood
As tourmaline aficianados know, there are few truly rare colors of tourmaline. A pure yellow without a stong green secondary hue is quite rare and I have never seen a true violet but until recently, purple was the one spectral color that absolutely did not exist in tourmaline. Yes we had purplish reds but until last year when the Alta Lighona tourmalines from
In early 1989 when the first curpian tourmalines from
Since that time I have seen many examples of blue tourmaline including the famous Manoel Mutuca (described by Proctor as “sapphire blue” see Gems & Gemology, Spring 1985, p.11)) and Santa Rosa material but none (at least so far) with a true pure blue hue. Blue tourmaline always has a distinct greenish secondary hue which becomes quite evident when it is compared stone to stone with fine sapphire. Blue tourmaline can be exceptionally beautiful but it looks like tourmaline not sapphire.
To burn or not to burn or "Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya punk?”
With the entry of
The
Some dealers have chosen the obvious solution. If you want a pure purple but burnable stone they will charge the same price as for the neon blue.(pictured above: unheated cuprian rough from Mozambique). Pictured below is an exceptional 1.89 carat custom cut Carribean blue cuprian stone cut from the center piece of rough. After and before; the first image shows the cut stone before heating. The second image shows the stone after the heating process was completed. The stone, currently available for sale at www.rwwise.com was cut by Gene Flanigan a very talented lapidary artist from upstate New York. (Images courtesy Gene Flanigan: www.precisiongem.com)
Will purple tourmaline go the way of fine star sapphires that hardly exist anymore because they can be burned and faceted? I don't think so, some of the fine purples simply possess problematic inclusions that make them risky candidates for burning. I found an 8.19 carat oval, a lovely example of
I get lots of emails. Don't think I'm not grateful. Every once in a while a real interesting one comes through the mailbox. take this on:
Position Available:
Yours sincerely,
I am not familiar with Stargate but believe the lady is serious. She even called and left a message on my machine. So if you are a gemologist in search of adventure give Lucilla a jingle. This time next month you could looking at sparklies and sipping pina colodas in beautiful downtown Bengui. As for myself I'd love to go along but I can't give up my day job but when you get there be sure to drop me a line and oh do be sure to take along a flack jacket.
New Site with excellent online library of inclusions:
Got an email from a French gemologist: Marie-France Boursier-Brard. Ms Boursier-Brard has developed an excellent site with online images of inclusions. The site is quite comprehensive and well organized. Just click on: www.gemmes-inclusions.com
Check out my book Secrets of The Gem Trade; The Connoisseurs guide To Precious Gemstones: www.secretsofthegemtrade.com.
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"This book takes a much-needed sledgehammer to the industry's conventional wisdom about what makes a gemstone precious, and in the process builds a solid foundation for anyone who wants to understand the true beauty and value of gemstones."
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Editor-in-Chief Colored Stone Magazine
3 comments:
Finally a discussion about Purple Tourmaline! When I first saw Paraiba Tourmaline, back in the eighties, in parcels of mixed colours, one of the colours was purple. The purple I am talking about was like the very finest blue tanzanite colour. The colour was fabulous, but it did not sell the same as the other colours of Paraiba. The reason for this was that the colour already existed in other gemstones, e.g: sapphire and tanzanite. Paraiba sold so well partly because it came in colours not ever seen before in any kind of gemstone and customers didn't even ask what the stones were. The fact that they were tourmalines was entirely secondary, it didn't matter because the colours sold themselves.
We ended up burning all the purple stones that we had. These of course turned in to the most valuable colour of Paraiba......Windex Blue!
This is the reason that "purple' paraiba has been non-existent since the early days of the find..........they were all burnt.
There is a cover of Gems & Gemology from about fifteen years ago that has a group of various different stones and one of them is a 15-20ct size "gem" tanzanite/colour Paraiba that I know was bought by a collector in Michigan.
The first Mozambique Cuprian Tourmaline we saw was in fact lilac in colour and we still have a pair of cushions that I will e-mail you a picture of. I will also e-mail you a picture of some Paraibe rough I have here that is an extraordinary blue.
Blog on!!!
I have no problem with its original color.
I recently acquired a bi-color tourmaline from Mozambique that appears to be straw yellow and grass green when outdoors in the shade yet turns a vivid pink and blue when in direct sunlight. Indoors under fluorescent light it turns a paler pink and silver gray. It also shows distint and vivid pleiochroism when rotated. Can you provide any information about this color change?
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