No mineral on earth holds more colour. We deal in one species and nothing else — cut and rough, named correctly, with origin and treatment stated on every stone.
Rubellite, indicolite, verdelite, chrome, canary, watermelon, cuprian. A single mineral covers a range no other gem family can.
Paraíba means cuprian elbaite, confirmed by chemistry — not a colour that resembles it. We write what a stone is, and what it is not.
Origin, treatment and weight on every listing. Heat is disclosed. Where a laboratory report exists, it is shown.
Striated prisms, waterworn pebbles, bi-colour sections. We sell facet-grade rough by the piece and by coherent parcels — same variety, same colour range, narrow weight band — so a cutter knows what they are buying.
See rough parcelsDutch traders brought it from Ceylon in the early 1700s and found it pulled ash out of a fire. A Russian crown jewel called a ruby for two centuries turned out to be one. It took until 1989 for the stone to produce a colour nobody had a name for.
Read the historyBuying notes, laboratory results, nomenclature, and the tests we run before a stone is listed. Written by the desk, for people who would rather understand a stone than be sold one.
Read the journalBrazil, Mozambique, Nigeria, Afghanistan, Madagascar — and copper-bearing Paraíba-type in particular, where the money and the fraud both concentrate. We supply the trade, we source single stones for one commission, and we cut rough to a client's brief.
Coherent parcels, matched pairs and suites, calibrated goods, and repeat supply of a single colour — cut stones and rough alike.
A private commission sourced to a brief: variety, colour, weight range and budget, with the faults named alongside the merits.
From our rough or yours. Orientation set for colour rather than for the weight it saves, plus recuts and calibrated sizes.
Variety, colour, weight range and budget. If we do not have it, we will say so — and tell you what it should cost when you find it.
hello@onlytourmaline.com