MQA10 Tourmaline var. Liddicoatite
Mt Ibity, Antsirabé 2 Dist., Vakinankaratra Region, Antananarivo Prov., Madagascar
8.5x 7.5x 6.9 cm
$1200
A large, hefty liddicoatite crystal from Madagascar. On every trip I am shown at least one of these, and I inevitably have to turn them down because the combination of price, damage, and color are not particularly favorable.
This one is not perfect either (you can see chipping on the top edge) but it displays well from the front (the visibility of the damage is minimized from that angle) and I'm offering it for less than pieces I've turned down in Madagascar, if you can believe that.
This is basically why all the tourmalines you see from Madagascar are small crystals or slices: the big ones are dark (there are of course some very expensive exceptions)
The outer ~6ish millimeters of the top faces are transparent, which gives this piece the sense of being a polychrome liddicoatite. When they are this size, they are typically sent to be sliced, so you don't see them often-- especially considering the market for dark tourmaline is a bit slower. I do not however think this would yield nice slices-- at best, a few would be black circles with a colored rind. Even so, such is the usual fate of crystals like this.
