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 Post subject: Vanadian Neon Green Tourmaline ?
PostPosted: Tue Jun 22, 2010 7:12 pm 
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Location: Oregon
This is a batch of stones I purchased off ebay from an unknown vendor. Supposedly, they are "Vanadian Neon Green Paraiba Tourmaline" with the origin listed as Mozambique. I won them at auction for little money and have no vested emotional interest in them being what they are represented as, so let me have it :lol:

I'm planning to send these off to a GG friend of mine hopefully for an ID, but in the meantime I'm itchy for clues to what I have. The only equipment I have right now is a polariscope which I'm just learning to use....so take it with a grain of salt when I say some of them appear doubly refractive and some appear anomalously doubly refractive.

I uploaded the closest pics I could take with my little camera here:
Image
Image
More pics:
http://picasaweb.google.com/distinction ... ourmaline#

Thanks in advance for any clues or speculations :D

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 Post subject: Re: Vanadian Neon Green Tourmaline ?
PostPosted: Wed Jun 23, 2010 11:29 am 
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Location: South Africa
Hi Distinstion Jewelery,

I am not a gemologist, I do a fair bit of faceting and do have a keen interest in gemology so have a fair bit of testing equipment.
A while ago a neighbors daughter had bought some cut stones on a ebay type site in South Africa called bid or buy. They were cheap but out of curiosity they were brought over for me to test.
1 was sold as a pink Topaz, one a synthetic Sapphire and one as a green quartz.
They were different shapes but all had 4 things in common.
1) They all had poor meets.
2) They all had girdles way too thick.
3) The girdels were all rounded off, ie no steps to reference meets.
4) They were all synthetic Spinel.

That doesn't mean yours are, just the cutting style rang a bell.
I do hope yours turn out different.

Sean.


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 Post subject: Re: Vanadian Neon Green Tourmaline ?
PostPosted: Wed Jun 23, 2010 12:33 pm 
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Hi Sean! Thanks for the idea, they could be synthetic spinel for sure; I was also wondering about YAG? Or....anything. I realize I'll probably have to ship them out and wait for anything conclusive.

I of course hope they are as claimed, but I inherently doubt it; I'm actually more curious at this point to find out what kind of fakery is involved :twisted: Like I said - there really isn't much money at all at stake here.

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 Post subject: Re: Vanadian Neon Green Tourmaline ?
PostPosted: Wed Jun 23, 2010 2:05 pm 
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Hi Distinction Jewlery,

I really hope they turn out well too, it's always possible to get a fair buy. The attraction now is finding out for sure, a bit like being at a casino waiting for the cards to be dealt.

The stones are pretty enough.

Sean.


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 Post subject: Re: Vanadian Neon Green Tourmaline ?
PostPosted: Wed Jun 23, 2010 2:45 pm 
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Dang, forgot to mention that tourmaline is pyroelectric, rubbed vigorosly on a soft material, wool etc should enable it to attract fine ash, that should narrow the field down a bit.


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 Post subject: Re: Vanadian Neon Green Tourmaline ?
PostPosted: Wed Jun 23, 2010 3:58 pm 
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Location: Monterey, CA
Try the Hodgkinson Method.
If tourmaline, you should have no trouble seeing the B : D ratio a of about 1.
If spinel the ratio is 0. (one rainbow).


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