Tourmaline is the most colorful member of the gemstone family, sometimes with alternating colors in the same gem. Tourmalines are gems with an incomparable variety of colors. The reason, according to an old Egyptian legend, is that the tourmaline, on its long journey up from the centre of the Earth, passed over a rainbow. In doing so, it assumed all the colors of the rainbow. And that is why it is still referred to as the 'gemstone of the rainbow' today. There are tourmalines from red to green and from blue to yellow. They often have two or more colors. There are tourmalines which change their color when the light changes from daylight to artificial light, and some show the light effect of a cat's eye. No two tourmalines are exactly alike. a tourmaline of an intense red is known as a 'rubellite', but only if it continues to display the same fine ruby red in artificial light as it did in daylight. If the color changes when the light source does, the stone is called a pink or shocking pink tourmaline. Blue tourmalines are known as 'indicolites', yellowish-brown to dark brown ones as 'dravites' and black ones as 'schorl'. One particularly popular variety is the green tourmaline, known as a 'verdite' in the trade. However, if its fine emerald-like deep green is caused by tiny traces of chrome, it is referred to as a 'chrome tourmaline'. The absolute highlight among the tourmalines is the 'Paraiba tourmaline', a gemstone of an intense blue to blue-green which was not discovered until 1987 in a mine in the Brazilian state of Paraiba. In 2001, another deposit of "Paraiba" tourmaline was discovered in Nigeria. The Brazilian and the African stones both get their beautiful color from copper and manganese. This has been explained by the theory that South America and Africa were once joined together, now separated by the result of continental drift. In good qualities, these gemstones are much sought-after treasures today. Stones with two colors are known as bi-colored tourmalines, and those with more than two as multicolored tourmalines. Slices showing a cross-section of the tourmaline crystal are also very popular because they display, in a very small area, the whole of the incomparable color variety of this gemstone. If the centre of the slice is red and the area around it green, the stone is given the nickname 'watermelon'.
The links below lead you to all varieties of our tourmaline inventory.
| RUBELLITE TOURMALINE (RED) |  |
| TOURMALINE (PINK,GREEN,YELLOW) |
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| INDICOLITE TOURMALINE
(BLUE) |
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| PARAIBA TOURMALINE (BLUE/GREEN) |
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| WATERMELON TOURMALINE (BI-COLOR) |
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| TOURMALINE SLICES
(CRYSTAL) |
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