Have I ever mentioned how much I love these stones? These tourmalines from Paraiba, Brazil are just an incomparable color of aqua blue, like tropical shallows. Or maybe the inside of one of those ice caves. Something about this color has just an unreal glow to it. It’s also a color that really isn’t seen in any other gemstone. There are a couple minerals that have a similar color, but they are fairly soft, and just not suitable for most jewelry.

I carved a very minimal mounting for this stone, brought to me by the client, and cast it in this gorgeous contrasting buttery 22K. (More pics below..)

The best part! The underside I carved with an open pavilion as it would be tragic to encase this stone entirely in metal. From the side and looking down at the ring on your finger, you get a flash of that bright blue-green underside of the stone.

I agonize over these stones every year at the Tucson gem show. The ones from Pariaba, Brazil, which I find have the most beautiful color, are astoundingly pricey (the Brazil mines shut down a few years ago). There is more recently however, tourmaline coming out of Nigeria and Mozambique that has a very similar color, I believe also caused by the same mineral ‘impurities.’ The crystals tend to be larger as well.