Tourmaline (multi-color, multi-terminated crystal group)

Here we have a wonderful old-time Brazilian Tourmaline specimen dating back to the 1970s. This piece is from the collection of my father, Richard Kosnar (1946-2007), the namesake for the rare zirconium phosphate mineral, Kosnarite. In his early days as a dealer, he spent several years in Brazil importing gem crystals, but this piece stood out for its quality and obvious beauty, so he kept it for his personal collection.

The specimen features a predominant trio of excellent, sharp, lustrous, very well-formed, striated trigonal prims, free of matrix. All three of the crystals are doubly terminated, making this nearly a complete "floater" specimen, but I can see one tiny point of attachment, so it's not 100% crystallized all the way around. The colors range from icy blue pyramidal terminations into wonderful pink and green "watermelon" coloring in the majority of the prisms, but one of the crystals has a notably GEMMY Indicolite blue color on one end. A few smaller accessory Tourmaline crystals can be seen for a nice touch.

It was difficult to accurately photograph / video, but take my word for it, it's a special and unique specimen, unlike any other I've seen from the Santa Rosa Mine. The piece has been out of the ground for nearly 50 years at this point, and I still can't recall seeing another like it. If you collect Tourmalines, gem crystals or minerals from Brazil, this is a distinctive and beautiful piece to add to your collection.

Ex. Richard A. Kosnar Collection

Specimen # WWMIX112211