The Paraiba gemstone tourmaline is a unique because it appears to glow from the inside out. This bright blue stone captured the attention of the entire globe about three decades ago! This Tourmaline rose to prominence fast and is now considered one of the world’s most valuable gemstones.
In Paraiba, Brazil, miners found a vividly colored tourmaline type in 1989. The new Paraiba gemstone kind’s extraordinarily vibrant blues and greens quickly earned its name. The Paraiba tourmaline’s beauty and unique neon light enthralled the gemstone industry.
As a result of their rapid rise in popularity, emeralds are now among the most highly sought-after and expensive gemstones around the globe. There has already been a significant increase in the price of Paraiba gemstone stones that would have seemed out of the realm of possibility a few years ago. Large Paraiba gemstone gemstones sell for under $10,000 per carat.
The market quickly consumed the limited Brazilian supply of Paraiba gemstone, but a comparable substance was later discovered in Mozambique. Often referred to as “neon,” Paraiba’s colors seemed to glow. As a result of the discovery that copper played a significant role in the stone’s coloring, this variation is referred to as Cuprian or copper-bearing.
Beautiful Tourmaline tinted by copper has been discovered in Mozambique, thanks to a recent African discovery. Compared to Brazilian Paraiba Tourmaline, this new source provides material practically indistinguishable from the Brazilian kind. Paraiba gemstone gemstones of Mozambique are less included and can be found in bigger sizes than the Brazilian variation of the gemstones.
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Origin Of The Paraiba Gemstone
The story of the Paraiba gemstone begins with the stuff of fairy tales, replete with a visionary who is foolishly hopeful and a buried treasure to find.
Paraiba (pronounced pah-rah-ee-bah) is a Brazilian state and region. Brazil, situated along ancient fault lines and on the surface of billions of years of geological activity, has long been renowned for its enormous quantities of amethyst, quartz, aquamarine, topaz, and Tourmaline, all of which have been discovered there.
“Have you heard of the Brazilian gemstone called Paraiba? The practice of mining these stones is not very well-known, and some you may never have heard of them unless you’re in the gem industry. These stones are known for their intense blue-green coloration caused by their copper content. They were first discovered in Paraiba, Brazil ( Where the name Paraiba came from).”
In the 1980s, a Brazilian gem prospector named Heitor Dimas Barbosa embarked on a mission to discover something “completely new” in a disused old mine in Paraiba, which he eventually succeeded in doing. After six years of fruitless searching, a tourmaline deposit was discovered and dug due to his devotion. What appeared was an electric blue stone that, even in its natural shape, appeared to be glowing.
While typical Tourmaline is composed of iron or sodium, this luminous crystal was created in a high concentration of copper and manganese, in contrast to regular Tourmaline. Heitor Dimas Barbosa uncovered the greatest treasure and made it available to the rest of the world. The stones, however, are incredibly uncommon and challenging to come by.
Mythology
The Sinhalese phrase “tura mali,” which means “mixed colored stones,” was initially used to define an array of zircons and other colorful stones.
A great admirer of pink Tourmaline, China’s Empress Dowager Tz’u Hsi purchased considerable amounts from the Himalaya Mine within San Diego County, California, when it was still a fledgling operation. Her final resting place was atop a carved tourmaline cushion in the Himalayas Mine.
There were various misinterpretations of Tourmaline because it resembles other gemstones. In reality, the Tourmaline was mistaken for rubies in Russian Crown jewels dating back to the 17th century. Green Tourmaline is the “Brazilian emerald” in South America, where this gem-quality substance is prevalent. Many of these green stones were mined by Portuguese colonists and brought to Portugal as jade in the early days of Portuguese colonialism.
Tourmaline’s folklore informs us that youngsters were responsible for its introduction to human understanding and admiration and its discovery in the United States. The lapidaries who gave the stones to the children, playing in the courtyard on a sunny summer day shortly after 1700, had apparently neither categorized nor assigned any particular importance to the stones.
Children’s sharp observation indicated that as their brilliant playthings got warmed by the sun’s light, they drew and retained straws, leaves, ashes, and other flammable materials. The children tried to appeal to their guardians for clarification on the nature of this weird property; nevertheless, their guardians were incapable of explaining as well as recognizing the stones, instead of showing them the appellation of aschentreckers and ash-drawers, which remained attached to this Tourmaline for a long time after they were discovered.
Elbaite gets its name from the Italian island of Elba, where numerous magnificent specimens of the mineral were discovered, such as the famed “Moor’s Head Tourmaline.”
Tourmaline gemstones are expressed to have the ability to improve one’s comprehension, strengthen one’s self-confidence, and magnify one’s psychic energies, as well as assist in focus and communication, among other things. As an alternative, they are supposed to neutralize lousy energy and relieve feelings of dread and sadness.
According to traditional beliefs, Tourmaline was beneficial in calming the body and the mind, and it might aid in the cure of a wide range of disorders, including anxiety, arthritis, blood poisoning, and heart disease. In addition to being claimed to stimulate love, spirituality, and creativity, pink Tourmaline is also supposed to impart wisdom and strengthen one’s willpower. Watermelon Tourmaline is reportedly beneficial in helping people heal from emotional difficulties. September is the month of October, but the Tourmaline is the birthstone for Libra, which is the zodiac sign of a sign.
No Tourmaline is precisely like another. Paraiba’s tourmaline gemstones have a variety of faces and are therefore well suited to meet a wide range of moods and temperaments. Consequently, it should be no surprise that Paraiba tourmaline has been ascribed with magical properties since antiquity, according to traditional beliefs.
Love and friendship are said to be notably strengthened by the presence of Paraiba gemstone because it provides them with a sense of continuity and stability. Paraiba’s Tourmaline is a rare and valuable gemstone in the intriguing globe of gemstones. Grandiloquent Tourmaline is one of our most renowned gemstones, thanks to its widespread availability and stunning, unmatched color gamut. Beautiful, stable, and a little love may be added to your life with the assistance of Fine Paraiba gemstone Gems, which we have an extensive assortment of.
Properties of Paraiba Gemstone
For every 10,000 diamonds extracted in Brazil, just one Brazilian Paraiba gemstone is discovered. Until 2003, it was believed that Paraiba gemstone came entirely from Brazil, which offered the peculiar copper-rich environment necessary for forming these precious stones. That same year, tourmaline stones that were virtually indistinguishable from the jewels from Brazil began appearing on the market.
The stones in question were sourced from Mozambique as well as Nigeria. Even though an ocean separates the continents, it is believed they were much closer to the same subduction zone, which supplied volcanic heat to the copper-rich mountains.
Unlike other gemstones, Paraiba tourmaline receives quite a lot of leeway regarding its color, which means that the more color in the stone, the more valuable the stone should be. It means that you should expect to pay a higher price for a large proportion of color than the size of the stone.
Paraiba’s tourmaline from Brazil are:
- Copper-rich or Cupriferous
- High price, low availability
Paraiba’s Tourmaline from Africa includes:
- Compared to their Brazilian equivalents, they are slightly lighter.
- Copper-rich or Cupriferous
- Accessible in greater numbers
Fake Paraiba Gemstone
Because of the widespread interest in the strong blue color of Paraiba, brilliant blue-hued stones of all varieties are now referred to as “Paraiba” stones. Paraiba’s opals, sometimes known as Paraiba topaz, are gemstones found in Brazil (painted clear topaz). The stones do not come from the Paraiba region in the first place. Indicolite tourmaline is marketed as Paraiba by specific other merchants, although these stones do not have the copper-rich properties of genuine Paraiba tourmaline.
Color
In addition to the broad and unparalleled spectrum of hues in which it occurs, Tourmaline is a valuable stone that is distinguished by the originality and grandeur of its colors. Paraiba’s Tourmaline is a precious stone that exhibits the uniqueness and magnificence of its colors. A wide range of colors may be seen even within the Paraiba gemstone. Some of them are pretty bright, while others are so opaque that the color can just be distinguished when the stone is held up against a light source.
As claimed by an old Egyptian tradition, the range of hues seen in tourmaline gems is due to the attribute that, on their prolonged journey from the Earth’s center to the sun, tourmaline stones journeyed via a rainbow, collecting all the rainbow colors along the way. As a result, Tourmaline is frequently referred to as the “Rainbow gemstone” in popular culture.
For tourmaline stones, the term “rainbow” is used to describe them metaphorically. Rather than being restricted to the seven rainbow colors, Tourmaline’s color diversity is widely acknowledged to exist in a variety of other hues as well. Loose Tourmaline may range in color from colorless to virtually every color, hue, and tone comprehended to humankind; single crystals of Tourmaline can switch in color throughout their length plus cross-section, depending on their composition.
The bi-color, as well as tri-color green Tourmaline, are formed as a result of color changes over the length of a crystal. Concentric color variations can occur in a cross-section of a gemstone, as in the example of watermelon tourmaline, which has a pink tourmaline center encircled by a green rind. In particular, tourmaline crystals that exhibit just a single fancy hue are pretty rare. In most cases, one but the same crystal may demonstrate a variety of tints and colors.
In addition to a broad spectrum of hues, the Paraiba tourmaline exhibits spectacular dichroism, a two-sided reflection of light. The color of a Paraiba tourmaline gemstone will vary depending on the angle from which it is seen, or at the very least, the strength of the color will vary. When cutting a Paraiba tourmaline stone, it is essential to remember that the darkest color consistently shows along the major axis, which the cutter of Paraiba tourmaline must bear in mind.
How to Cut Paraiba Gemstone
Typically, Tourmaline is discovered in extended crystals, which are considered economically split in the elongated rectangular shape; however, Paraiba tourmaline is even commonly encountered in cushions, emerald cuts, trillions, ovals, rounds, as well as other dazzling shapes (such as briolettes, pears, hearts, but also marquises), as well as in different colors and sizes. Exquisite Paraiba gemstone crystals, which fetch the most excellent prices for every carat, are typically cut into additionally conservative shapes such as ovals, emerald cuts, and cushions.
Treatments
It is possible to irradiate tourmaline gems to increase the color of specific stones, particularly pinkish-red colored stones. It is nearly hard to detect irradiation in Tourmaline, which negatively influences its value. Tourmaline with a high concentration of inclusions, such as rubellite and Brazilian Paraiba, can improve its clarity. A clarity-enhanced tourmaline (specifically Paraiba) is adored far less than an untreated gem of the same size.
Heat treatment may bring out the best in some tourmalines’ colors. Through heating, some dark greenish stones may be transformed into intense emerald green; other brownish-red stones can be transformed into red or pink, and some light pink tourmaline gemstones can be colorless. Numerous darker stones can have their hue brightened by using a unique technique.
Worth of Paraiba Gemstone
Paraiba tourmalines are valued at between $2,000 and $50,000 per carat, depending on their quality. In light of this stone’s high value and scarcity, obtaining a more significant number of little stones is sometimes more cost-effective than locating a multi-carat real Paraiba gemstone on the open market.
