This is a NEW FIND of what we believe is Iolite coming from Afghanistan. This is a very bright almost deep pastel or neon purple color. From what we are hearing there is a very limited amount of this being produced and the pieces tend to be small. This lot is great for some commercial cutting and the color is not that overly dark African or Indian color. There is a lot of fire in these stones which range in size from around 1 to 5+ carats; however, the bulk of the clean material is in the smaller size range. There are a few partial crystallizations in here but nothing really worthwhile for the specimen collector. This is really an odd lot and our first experience dealing with Iolite on any type of scale and therefore, we are going to be very conservative and say that this is between 10-25% facet grade. I believe that a lot more of it is facet grade; however, you need to keep in mind that most of the pieces are relatively small.

1. We are still in the process of confirming the identity on this and therefore can not say with 100% certainty what this stone is.

2. This has not yet been tested and as a result we can't certify the identity of the rough. We have taken a few sample stones of this material and are preparing to send them to GIA for a formal analysis in the near future.