A RARE, HUGE matrix tourmaline specimen from the Little 3 Mine in California, dug in the 1960s or 70s, dear to so many of the local SoCal collectors' hearts! This spectacular piece came out of the well known San Diego collections of Irv Brown and Chuck Houser. It came originally from Dr. Peter Bancroft, author of Gem & Crystal Treasures, and was a companion piece to a famous large specimen that Dave Wilber had in the 1970s in his displays. The Little 3 is one of the more geologically disrupted pegmatites in San Diego and large specimens are almost unheard of, and pieces of this size tend to come in pieces in situ, by the time we find them. Not surprisingly, it needed a few repairs to put it back together after removal from the pocket (at least 3, but they are not visibly detracting); but as you can see, the repairs are clean and it looks the way Mother Nature intended it to. We shot it under strong light so you could see the color in these dark tourmalines. They are just HUGE - measuring over 4 cm across the termination! (The taller one is 6 cm in height.) They sit aesthetically right next to a large, euhedral, translucent quartz crystal, on a carefully-trimmed matrix of bladed cleavelandite.