FMF - Friends of Minerals Forum, discussion and message board

[Roger Warin]

What has become of the beautiful "Rose of Itatiaia"? (with cleavelandite).

[Tobi]

[Jordi Fabre]

More info in the always so useful Biographical Archive of the Mineralogical Record

[vic rzonca]

[Jean Sendero]

My favorite from Mexico. We do not see a lot of these older elbaite from Baja California. This one was acquired from Dave Bunk in September 2014 with other labels from collector Gene Laberge #519, November 1989 and dealers Mark and Jeannette Rogers.

[Gerhard Brandstetter]

Elbaite from Morocco is relatively rare. In 2017 i acquired this crystal group from a Moroccan dealer who told me about the locality. I was skeptical - during this time the few specimens on the market were labeled only as "Ouarzazate Region" To my surprise I found the same locality in Jordi's new update. Anyway - I love it very much!

[Catahoula]

Although it is not museum quality as many here are, this is very special to me because my son and I collected it in Riverside County, CA when he was 14. This is a 2.2 lb bi-color. Although dark, the color banding continues up into deep reds and greens. The entire top 2" are deep green. There were 6 lbs of rubellite, verdelite and assorted tourmalines, and over 20 lbs of smoky quartz in the pocket. A great first gem find for us both. Six years later, this is still a passion we share. Blessed to have a common obsession with my son.

[Jesse Fisher]

In the mid 1980s, when I was first getting serious about mineral collecting, specimens from the pegmatites of Northern Pakistan, and to a lesser degree the neighboring provinces of Afghanistan were beginning to show up in the mineral marketplace here in Northern California. I am sure this was due to the fact that there was a large community of expat Afghanis who had fled the country after the Soviet invasion only a few years prior.

One of the things I remember was seeing tables covered with elbaite and cleavelandite specimens such as this one. Most were in serious need of cleaning, which was rather time-consuming as one usually needed to remove clay/cookieite coatings without damaging the underlying tourmalines and feldspars. This was a learning process and wasn't always successful. At least the specimens were inexpensive at that time!

I've always had a fondness for the location, and recently found this one from the Rock Currier collection. A very good example of the hemimorphism of the tourmaline group.

[Eck Noch]

I realize that it’s ‘just’ Schorl but it’s self collected and some of most northern picket Schorl from California that I know of. Pulled from our mine in El Dorado County.

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Size information corrected to 14 cm (Tobi)

[Philippe Durand]

nice pencil !
congratulations for this self collected specimen

[Carles Millan]

Tourmaline group, albite

I own about thirty tourmalines but am not sure which is my favorite. Maybe this one, I think it has something special. Hope you'll like it.

More details about such specimen by clicking here.

Photos copyright © Carles Millan. Reproduction allowed as long as the author's name is cited and the image not modified (if it is not too much to ask...). Creative Commons Attribution Licence - Some Rights Reserved.

[Tobi]

Really nice contributions to this topic!

Gerhard, I also like the new finds from Morocco, they have such a great colour! I don't own one, I hope one day to find a nice one, congratulations on that beauty :-)

Catahoula, no matter if this may not be the usual "museum quality" - it is an amazing find and I really envy you for digging such a treasure with your son! Germany is a country with a lot of great minerals, but large bi-colour tourmalines are not among them ;-)

Eck, also a wonderful find, congratulations! You wrote 14mm for the size, I guess you meant 14 cm and I corrected it (but maybe 14 mm was correct and you just have very tiny hands) ;-)

Jesse & Carles, awesome Stak Nala pieces, so beautiful! And Carles, I think I know most of your tourmalines and this one is worth being a favourite. You're right, it has something special. There are many elbaite specimens from Stak Nala on the market, but I haven't seen one with so many perfect crystals - this is an outstanding beauty!

... And finally my new favourite tourmaline from my own collection, it's the latest addition and I simply love this bi-bolour crystal from Brazil:

[Carles Millan]

Hi Tobi

Many thanks for your comments.

Your new tourmaline is not only nice because of the color combination, the green being like that of an emerald, it also shows a perfect termination with primary and secondary faces that give the specimen a special look.

Congratulations!

[Tobi]

Unfortunately the next one is not part of my personal collection ;-)
This incredible thing was on display some years ago in the Marburg Museum: