Tourmaline

Possibly the most famous Tourmaline of recent years is the so called Paraiba. Emanating from a mine in Brazil, these fantastic gems, electric-neon blue, neon green and deep purplish-blue gems were found for a short period of time and became the hottest new find in gemstones of the past 15 years. Selling for many thousands of dollars per carat, collectors snapped them up as the supply drew to an end. Colored by trace amounts of copper, it was the greatest vivid blue gem to occur, with it's almost flourescent colors wowing collectors and consumer alike. Almost as soon as it hit the market, it disappeared, as the mine was quickly exhausted. Today a similarly copper colored blue tourmaline is slightly more readily available from Mozambique, South East Africa, although it doesn't have quite the same electric vivid color. This source has too been exhausted.

Here is a stunning trillion cut Brazilian Paraiba of 4.49cts, that we recently had the pleasure of handling:

Tourmalines are found in many other colors, green being my favourite. Dark blue, called Indicolite, is another lovely variation of Tourmaline. Pinks are also quite highly prized, especially in Asia, where they have been admired for years. Southern CA has been a fantastic source of very fine pink Tourmaline for at least 100 years, they were mined almost as a by product, due to the geology of the area which produced Lithium ore.

This a Vera Wang ring with an intense hot pink gem Tourmaline.