Month: September 2019

Say lapis lazuli and you wouldn’t be alone thinking of a royal blue colour perhaps with golden flecks, you don’t really recall the patches of white calcite but they’re there, most prized are the uniform rich blue colours with minimal calcite and pyrite.

Most of the Lazpis Lazuli available today is from Afghanistan, there’s a series of mines, mostly known by number ie. mine 1, mine 2, mine3

Although fairly rare you do find lapis lazuli crystals

However the range of colours from these mines can vary, (along with the price).

Often you see rough stone for sale that’s wet to give an indication of how the colour will appear with a polish, however if you’re choosing lapis the local miners blow on the stone to see how the moisture in their breath appears on the stone(inside tip!)

This is a rarer form of axinite which is rich in manganese from Merelani Hills, Arusha, Tanzania. The nearby location of the more infamous trademark named mostly treated stone. This axinite has been nicknamed by the industry as ‘tinzanite’

We’ve only one piece but thought it was worth showing you this interesting variety.

Tourmaline is pretty amazing, all colours of the rainbow, many names, a common triangular like formation, but say ‘tourmaline’ and most think of black sticks!

A lot of tourmaline has hidden colours, zoning and and bi colour areas, previously we showed a few from Staknala but these Himalayan crystals have some hidden blue green zoned colours.