I'd go with the more classic, cloudy one. The other one looks too much like a big marble to me. Cool, but not where I'd expect portents to hide. Also, it looks bigger.
Yes, I noticed that too. I spoke with the seller and she repped it as 3.5, but for the life of me it looks like the classic option is closer to 4. It actually could be, as the owner said that the classic one was mis-priced by her daughter on the website (she lets her upload them to give her something to do) so it's possible that she mis-labled the diameter as well. I guess relevant information is also that the traditional option is less than half the price of the tourmaline one (the seller volunteered that she'd give it for me for the mis-price). Both are within my budget for what I'm willing to pay for a crystal sphere though, so I'm not factoring that in too much. I have been leaning a bit in the classic direction though, just because it's closest to a traditional crystal ball, but has more going on than the glass sphere props we're used to seeing in the movies and such.
I have to disagree. The one with the tourmaline is quite a bit more interesting, IMO. Looks like the kind of thing that you could stare at for a long time and not get bored, like a fire or a tree with no leaves. The chaotic order of creation is more evident in the flawed one.
If I were the warlock in question I would go with the tourmaline sphere I belive. But alas, this is for my witch. Edit: I do feel like if you were a witch though, you could do some cool things where you orient the tourmaline spike in a particular direction that represented various things (a destination, goal, binary choice, etc) and then "feel the vibrations" to let you know if the direction is the correct one. Least that's how I would do it were I a witch.