A unique parti-color Brazilian tourmaline necklace with a total weight of 961 carats. Photo by Duncan Pay/GIA, courtesy of Atlas Gemstones, Inc.
At the AGTA show, Anna Jankowiak (Atlas Gemstones Inc., Toronto) showed us a unique 961 ct parti-color tourmaline necklace and clasp (figure 1). This piece, which Ms. Jankowiak said she purchased in India, was reportedly cut from a single large, slender Brazilian tourmaline crystal reportedly mined within the last three years. The cutter tried to salvage as much of the material as possible by slicing down the crystal’s length. This produced large flattened sections with rounded edges that showed alternating green and pink color zoning down their lengths. The zoning was strong, neat, and “tight.” This was in contrast to many of the parti-color tourmaline crystal slices we saw at the show, which were sliced perpendicular to their lengths to show the typical concentric “watermelon” zoning.
