This is a ballbuster aqua. And, you know i normally dont get excited about big single gem xls. this thing GLOWS and has the juiciest deepest richest blue color i chacteristic from the famous Medina pocket of 1997. Well, ok, all the good ones really had equivalent color, truth be told - a remarkable consistency among the pocket contents. Most folks consider this the most important find of gem quality aquamarine in a single pocket, since the 1940s find of the style of the "Pioneer Aqua" in Brazil. This piece i can recommend because, although it doesn't COST six figures, the quality is every bit as good as what you can ever hope to get from the find and so you do not sacrifice quality at all to buy this one as opposed to waiting for one of the few bigger ones to resurface; they remain uniquely recognizable in the beryl world as being from a unique and special pocket; the history and pedigree are good; and the piece is just plain gorgeous. The strength and the problem with the material from this find is that it is all gemmy and gem rough. it is glassy, and better in person in that regard. so the good part is that makes them beautiful. the bad part is that makes them "cutters" of obvious and easily realized value to the miners. Thus, Wayne Thompson, when he bought the specimens from the pocket in brazil and took them to market in tucson in 1997, had to pay gem rough prices for them ($10 per carat for good quality aqua, adding a premium for the large potential size of the stones, and this would have cost him at the time $15550 plus some 10-20% premium charge, IN brazil). What wayne bought is what was saved from destruction and use in the gem trade. They cut big, beautiful stones. Few survived for our market, and a certain percentage of those have even been cut since for the large rough in them. This one was, he says, the best of the "smaller" aquas from the find (there were a few that were 1 foot in length, and these go for 100k and up nowadays). this one was sold to Ed David, at that time.

The larger crystal measures 6.5 x 3 x 2 cm in size, and the smaller is about 4.5 x 3 x 2 cm. These fat, 3-dimensional crystals tick out dramatically from a matrix of albite, and with schorl in the background for contrast. The matrix is actually a portion of an albite crystal, not just massive rock. There is a small bit of edge wear to each crystal's termination, which detracts only a tiny bit visually if you go looking, but for which the price is reduced quite a bit from the original price given to me in the "lot" group i bought. It has the most robust deep blue color I have seen before in an Erongo specimen, with a translucent and deeply colored body and a gemmy termination atop. The intense color, and large size, combined with lustre and a contrasting schorl association, all conspire to make this a special pocket considered by those who saw them recently at the Denver show to be among the best aqua finds here in about a decade of quite sporadic aquamarine mining.

A whopping 10 x 3 x 2.2 cm crystal, doubly-terminated, sits astride a cluster of fat schorl crystals (on albite core matrix). This crystal is HUGE for the locality, and has the robust deep blue color of this new pocket.. It is actually complete all around, and has both terminations, though with a small bit of edge wear on one end (very minor) and a bit of contacting where it grw against something, on the smaller and tapered end. It has the most robust deep blue color I have seen before in an Erongo specimen, with a translucent and deeply colored body and a gemmy termination atop. The intense color, and large size, combined with lustre and a contrasting schorl association, all conspire to make this a special pocket considered by those who saw them recently at the Denver show to be among the best aqua finds here in about a decade of quite sporadic aquamarine mining. This would be a dramatic specimen from ANYwhere, of course. The schorl association, and the size of the crystal, make it a major example from this find.

This piece screams with color and has amazing 3-dimensional arrangement of the aquamarines upon the contrasting schorls. The large aqua is DOUBLY-terminated and 9.5 x 2.9 x 2.7 cm in size. It graces the back or the front of this specimen depending on how you want to show it. From one side, you have a shocking cluster of fat, very gemmy, aquas hanging off the schorl backdrop, featuring this largest doubly-terminated crystal in the middle. A few small aquas are broken off to the periphery, but none of the majors and it is inconsequential in context. A very minor bit of edge wear, a few dings that are trivial in context, are present on the big aqua terminations, but this does not detract visually as they are shallow; and i only mention it for accuracy here. From the other display angle of view, you have what looks like a totally different, more elegant specimen, featuring several fat aquamarine tips poking up over hills of schorl (and with the forest of accenting aquas below, like trees on a slope). The piece looks incredible from either angle of display - and as I said, it looks really like two entirely different pieces depending on your choice of angle. Overall, this has some of the most robust, deep blue color I have seen before in an Erongo specimen, with a translucent and deeply colored body and a gemmy termination atop. The intense color, and large size, combined with lustre and a contrasting schorl association, all conspire to make this a special pocket considered by those who saw them recently at the Denver show to be among the best aqua finds here in about a decade of quite sporadic aquamarine mining. With its unique aesthetics and schorl contrast, this is a major display quality, cabinet aquamarine that is DIFFERENT then anything that ever came out of Brazil or Pakistan.