Image: Beryl-gem7-72a

Description: Beryl Locality: Chivor Mine, Chivor, Guavió-Guatéque Mining District, Boyacá Department, Colombia (Locality at mindat.org) Size: miniature, Large Thumbnail Emerald (12-SIDED) A simply stunning, fat thumbnail-sized crystal of emerald with very good COLOR , LUSTRE , and GEMMINESS...in person, much better than you can relate from the pics. The termination is glassy. The upper half is quite gemmy and mostly transparent, whereas it grades to opacity towards the base. This has some intrinsic facet rough value in the top portion although it is admittedly included in parts by internal veiling; but this is ironically of benefit to the specimen collector because its still very appealing as a specimen crystal and yet it survived the cutter because of slight flaws that do not matter as much in a specimen as in the cut stone. Also, if it were of the highest cutting grade, it would be unaffordable to the specimen collector - so one looks for the compromise between top quality and visual appeal in buying an emerald crystal, always aiming to have SOME intrinsic cutting value. Note that the piece is MUCH more gemmy in person because the camera cannot focus well on the crystal without going through to the back faces. You can actually see if you look closely how the faces you se ein the leftmost pic "in front" are actuyally the rear bevels showing through the completely gemmy upper portion of the crystal! BY THE WAY AS AN ADDED BIT OF INTEREST FROM THE FORMER OWNER: My Emerald is from the Chivor Mine. One of the key clues on this is the fact that the Emerald is 12 sided or Di-hexagonal. The Chivor is well known for this phenomenon. Niether Muzo or Cosquez produce these 12 sided xtls that I am aware of.
Title: Beryl-gem7-72a
Credit: Image: http://www.irocks.com/db_pics/pics/gem7-72a.jpg, Description: http://www.irocks.com/render.html?species=Beryl&page=11
Author: Robert M. Lavinsky
Usage Terms: Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0
License: CC BY-SA 3.0
License Link: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0
Attribution Required?: Yes