{"id":17280,"date":"2020-01-09T10:09:36","date_gmt":"2020-01-09T15:09:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/?p=17280"},"modified":"2020-05-07T10:29:19","modified_gmt":"2020-05-07T14:29:19","slug":"tourmalines-are-forever","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/tourmalines-are-forever\/","title":{"rendered":"Tourmalines Are Forever"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"border: none; width: 100%; height: 326px;\" src=\"\/\/e.issuu.com\/embed.html?d=wg20_flipbook_for_issuu.com&amp;pageNumber=50&amp;u=portlandmagazine\" width=\"300\" height=\"150\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h2 class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Why <b><i>wouldn\u2019t<\/i><\/b> you want a <b>Maine stone <\/b>for your <b>engagement<\/b> ring?<\/span><\/h2>\n<p class=\"p1\">Winterguide 2020<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><em>By Colin S. Sargent<\/em><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_17334\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-17334\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-17334\" src=\"http:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/WG20-Tourmaline-300x267.jpg\" alt=\"\u00a9MMGM\/J.Scovil\" width=\"300\" height=\"267\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/WG20-Tourmaline-300x267.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/WG20-Tourmaline-200x178.jpg 200w, https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/WG20-Tourmaline-394x350.jpg 394w, https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/WG20-Tourmaline.jpg 450w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-17334\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">\u00a9MMGM\/J.Scovil<\/p><\/div>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">M<\/span><span class=\"s1\">aybe the Pine Tree State should have been the Gemstone State. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s1\">Maine can claim the first commercial gemstone mine in the United States, discovered near Paris, Maine, in 1820. Within a year who but a thirteen-year-old Hannibal Hamlin, younger brother of discoverer Elijah Hamlin, was involved in searching for tourmaline and selling his finds for pocket money, long before he became Abraham Lincoln\u2019s Vice President through most of the Civil War from 1861 to 1865.<\/span><\/p>\n<h4 class=\"p5\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Love Stones<\/b><\/span><\/h4>\n<blockquote>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">\u201cPrior to <strong>World War II<\/strong>, in Western countries, only <strong>ten percent of engagement rings<\/strong> contained a <strong>diamond<\/strong>.\u201d <\/span><span class=\"s2\">\u2014Social Science Research Network<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s1\">\u201cI chose a tourmaline engagement ring, and that was 45 years ago,\u2019 says Portland jewelry designer <strong>Patricia Daunis<\/strong>.<b> \u201cI didn\u2019t want a diamond. I wanted something distinctive.\u201d<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p6\"><span class=\"s1\">\u201cDiamonds aren\u2019t very rare. Maine tourmaline is special,\u201d says Annette Evans, owner of <strong>RD Allen<\/strong> in Freeport. \u201cIt\u2019s got an allure to it and comes in every hue in the book from clear to black, even silver. A lot of stores would rather sell the diamonds, so they say tourmaline is a soft stone. But most colored gemstones run from six to nine on the hardness scale. Tourmaline is a hard seven. And the scale doesn\u2019t measure toughness. I see plenty of 30 to 40-year-old tourmaline rings that still look good.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p6\"><span class=\"s1\">\u201cCustomers propelled me into tourmaline engagement rings. And it\u2019s perfect. Tourmaline is called the \u2018love stone.\u2019 It has piezoelectric properties, which attracts positive energy, and it\u2019s also pyroelectric, so it\u2019s warm to the touch.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p class=\"p6\"><span class=\"s1\"><i>The average price per carat is $700 for New England tourmaline, $70 for New England amethyst, and $26,000 for diamond. This price is highest grade plain at 1-carat size, each cut and faceted.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<h4 class=\"p5\"><b>Amethysts Are a Girl\u2019s Best Friend<\/b><\/h4>\n<p class=\"p3\">Amethyst is quartz encountered in the process of quarrying pegmatites, which are the areas of granite formations that cooled from magma long ago that have formed large crystals containing minerals such as quartzes (amethyst most valuably) and tourmalines.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p8\"><span class=\"s2\">Tourmaline and amethyst deposits were often uncovered by retreating glaciers during the last Ice Age. That\u2019s why stones are found elsewhere in New England, such as the amethyst and rose quartzes found on the Isles of Shoals and tourmalines in Connecticut.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p6\"><span class=\"s1\">A way to select a stone to maximize value and personal authenticity would be to purchase one as close to the source as possible, or, in other words, as far down the rock-to-setting (as in \u2018farm-to-table\u2019) ladder as possible, to avoid many markups and modifications to the stone. This allows for the design to be suited to the preferences of the buyer, at usually a lower total cost.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p6\"><span class=\"s1\">Dennis Creaser of <strong>Creaser Jewelers<\/strong> from Tourmaline Ground Zero, in South Paris, walks us through the steps.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p6\"><span class=\"s1\">\u201cAlmost without exception, modern Maine gemstones are specifically looked for. They\u2019re not a byproduct of commercial or industrial mining, but are sought after from miners who want to find them.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p class=\"p9\"><span class=\"s1\"><i>\u201cMaine has a special place in the gemstone history of the United States.<br \/>\nThe first commercial gemstone mine was started in Maine.\u201d\u2013geology.com<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<h4 class=\"p5\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Bloodless Diamonds<\/b><\/span><\/h4>\n<p class=\"p10\"><span class=\"s1\">\u201cT<\/span><span class=\"s1\">hey\u2019re very small-scale operations, usually only one or two people. The good thing about this is that these days there is very, very little environmental impact.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p6\"><span class=\"s1\">\u201cIn the past, when feldspar mining in Maine was a thing, the quarries were immense, beyond the scale you could think a Maine mine could be. Today, the largest quarry producing gemstones is <strong>Mount Mica<\/strong>. Compared to other gemstone operations in the world, it\u2019s very small. You can barely see it from satellite photos. Most large quarry operations can be seen from space.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p6\"><span class=\"s1\">\u201cThese one-or-two person operations in Maine usually buy the largest excavator they can afford. We mined for amethyst with a 5,500-pound excavator, which could be towed behind a heavy-duty pickup truck. We built our own dump truck out of a four-wheel-drive pickup truck that was no longer road-legal. With these two pieces of equipment, we were able to start our mine.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p6\"><span class=\"s1\">\u201cThe first step is finding the gemstones\u2014indeed an ordeal. It\u2019s like playing the slot machine. You have no idea when you\u2019re going to win, or if.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p6\"><span class=\"s1\">\u201cWhen you find a pocket, very little of the material is gemstone quality, maybe two or five percent. The rest is going to be non-gem-quality, maybe specimen grade material. Some miners can start to tell the difference, but the one who really can is a cutter. A person can be both a miner and a gem cutter, like myself, but that\u2019s a little rare. Most miners work with a cutter. After they\u2019ve made their selections, they take their pile of rough to the cutter, who sorts the rough stones and decides which ones are good.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p10\"><span class=\"s1\">\u201cI\u00a0<\/span>have a factory I use in Sri Lanka. Out of the handful of rough, only 10 or 15 will be worthy of being cut in the United States. The smaller gem-quality material will be sent to Sri Lanka or Thailand. Stuff that doesn\u2019t make that grade may be tumbled into beads, or whatever, but mostly it ends up in buckets and we try to figure out what to do with them.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p6\"><span class=\"s1\">\u201cThere are only a handful of jewelers left in Maine that deal with Maine gemstones. Primarily it\u2019s us and <strong>Cross Jewelers<\/strong>. Direct contact with the mines is really what to look for. If you\u2019re interested in buying Maine, you\u2019re going to get the best value working with a jeweler directly connected to the mines.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h5 class=\"p1\" style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">The Ultimate Maine Necklace<\/h5>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">When <strong>Josephine Peary\u2019s<\/strong> infant daughter died in 1901, she traveled across the arctic ice to see her husband, polar explorer Robert E. Peary. He\u2019d never seen his child. There she met Allakasingwah, Peary\u2019s Inuit lover who would have two sons with him. In 1913, the explorer gave Josephine this \u201cI\u2019m sorry\u201d present for her fiftieth birthday. Designed by Carter Brothers Jewelers in downtown Portland, it features \u201c10 deep green Maine tourmalines, totaling 47.5 carats, set in native gold,\u201d according to the <strong>Maine State Museum<\/strong>. \u201cBoth of the Pearys were emphatic that \u2018they would not be satisfied with anything but the deep, pure emerald green\u2019 of <strong>Mount Apatite<\/strong> tourmaline,\u201d according to <i>A Story of Maine in 112 Objects: From Prehistory to Modern Times<\/i> by Bernard P. Fishman.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">Josephine and her husband arranged the stones on a table on their <strong>Eagle Island <\/strong>retreat and \u201cspent evening after evening at the fascinating game of arranging and rearranging the sparkling green gems on a bit of white velvet, trying to decide upon the most effective design,\u201d Fishman writes.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">Years later in Washington, she hated when reporters called it her beautiful emerald necklace. According to Fishman, \u201cShe would say: \u2018Other women have their emeralds and diamonds. I am the only one who has a Maine tourmaline necklace set in Maine-mined gold.\u2019\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><strong>Fun fact:<\/strong> Bestselling author and explorer Josephine Peary summered on Eagle Island, but she had a winter apartment at Ricker Park on 290 Baxter Boulevard in Portland.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dare to wear Maine&#8217;s<br \/>\nbloodless diamonds.<br \/>\nBy Colin S. Sargent<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17333,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[643,650,641,642,640,644,645,637,127,649,647,648,638,646,639,636],"class_list":["post-17280","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","tag-amethyst","tag-bernard-fishman","tag-creaser","tag-cross-jewelers","tag-daunis","tag-gems","tag-josephine-peary","tag-love-stones","tag-maine","tag-maine-state-museum","tag-mount-apatite","tag-mount-mica","tag-paris","tag-peary-necklace","tag-rd-allen","tag-tourmaline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17280","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17280"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17280\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18652,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17280\/revisions\/18652"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17333"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17280"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17280"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17280"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}