ALWAYS LEARNING & LOVING IT!
Last week I went to a Wholesale Gemshow, when I was “scoping” out the treasures, I came across a few “new to me” finds. I was a bit skeptical about what the vendor was calling these beauties, BUT they were again, “new to me” and figured I would take them home and research. I knew when the vendor was labeling them “tourmaline” he wasn’t wrong that there was in fact a variety of tourmaline in them, so it was safe to sell them and refer to them as such by calling them “tourmaline mix” my biggest fear in this business is misleading my customers. It was brought to my attention that they were in fact called “Pegmatite” a tad bit of a higher end specimen than tourmaline alone, I wasn’t wrong, but I am in love with the findings……..
A BIT OF MY FINDINGS……..
Pegmatites are important because they often contain rare earth minerals and gemstones, such as tourmaline, aquamarine, topaz, garnet, beryl, spodumene, fluorite, apatite and corundum, they are also the primary source of lithium either as spodumene, lithiophyllite or usually from lepidolite.
A simple granite pegmatite may contain only quartz, feldspar , and mica. Pegmatites are formed as part of the cooling and crystallization process of intrusive rocks.
How exciting that this one specimen contains so much, now not all that you find contain every gem or mineral listed, but they are a beauty to look at and figure out what exactly is in them. Pictured are a few of what I have purchased some may be still available!
I want to end with ALWAYS be careful who you purchase from, not every vendor is knowledgeable, when I purchase I look for the pure beauty of a specimen then research if I have doubts on what it was labeled as. In this case I did know it was mixed tourmaline so all is good, but I was excited to learn there was more to the treasures than I was aware of !!! I am grateful I have a lot of fellow seller friends that help along the way & that is exactly what happened with this find, I continued research using google and continued to get more & more impressed.
If you’re looking to learn further here are a few links I found to be informative & cool……
http://geologylearn.blogspot.com/2015/03/pegmatite.html
http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Pegmatite
Namaste ~
Debbie
Thank you for all the information .As always I know you double check or triple check your info.before posting your unique treasures!
Are any still available?
Sometimes a few may get passed me, but I always have an abundance of Seller/friends who guide me at times. Yes all that you see in the picture are still available 🙂