I just got a new parcel of stones in from Nigeria. Most of the parcel is some of the Nigerian Paraiba type tourmaline. Here's a picture of a portion of the parcel. Most of these stones I'll heat to bring out a more neon color.



A few new Nigerian Spessartite garnets. Very clean stones with a slight burn orange with a touch of red.



This is a Nigerian stone from a different parcel, cut and before heating. I wanted to post this before picture, since today I'll put it into the oven and we shall see what we get. The stone should burn off the grey mask and produce a brighter light blue color.



And here is the after heating picture. It doesn't show that well in the photo's, but the before heating had a grey mask that is burned off, and the stone is much brighter now, with a slight neon glow.



This cut spessartite is the middle stone from the above rough picture.



This stone is from the new Nigerian Paraiba parcel, but not one of the stones in the above picture. About half the parcel was made up of stones with a very deep blue, but closed C axis. Here's one of them. The heating caused some stress inclusions, but the color a a very deep intense windex blue. The inclusions are less noticeable in person, the pictures always bring them out more.

Tags: Cuprian Tourmaline, Spessartite Garnet