Arusha Gem Trade

Tanzanite Prices & Value

stvnnj — Sun, 15 Oct 2017 17:50:52 +0000

Tanzanite prices are dictated by the laws of supply and demand in a way Diamond prices aren’t. Diamond prices are controlled by the big players like De Beers who control the supply to market and hence the price.

Unlike Diamonds and gems like Tsavorite, Tanzanite prices do not currently increase rapidly on a per carat basis at different carat brackets. Tanzanite value and hence price is very much linked to rarity – the finer the color/clarity/cutting grade the higher the price. The chart below is a snapshot of prices currently observed in the market in 2020.

Within each bracket there is a price range and this accounts for different outlets and different markups within the supply chain. If you buy at Tiffany’s for example, the price for the same Tanzanite will be different than buying from the source.

CHART SHOWING TANZANITE PER CARAT PRICES IN 2020

The chart assumes good cutting and proportions and VVS clarity.

CARAT WEIGHT Investment Grade

Finest 1% Mined AAA Grade AA Grade A Grade B Grade

0.00 – 1.99 carats $600 – $700 $425-$480 $300 $200 $100

2.00 – 2.99 carats $750 – $1350 $500 – $550 $325 $250 $150

3.00 to 9.99 carats $780 – $1380 $550 – $575 $350 $275 $170

10 carats plus $800 – $1500 $580 – $590 $400 $300 $190

Adjustments

Fine Cutting – Add 5% to 15% Poor/Native Cutting – Deduct 15% to 30%

Clarity Adjustments VS Clarity – Deduct 5% – 8% SI Clarity – Deduct 15% to 20%

The Definitive Tourmaline Buying Guide

stvnnj — Fri, 13 Oct 2017 16:48:41 +0000

Judging Tourmaline Color

This is a wide topic as Tourmaline comes in such an enormous variety of colors, that discussing each color type individually is beyond the scope of this article. However, it is unnecessary, as color quality derives from a universal set of rules. We will be using the GIA (Gemological Institute of America’s) approach to color here. The GIA approaches color using 3 components – Hue, Tone, and Saturation.

When you are judging color in Tourmaline you should there look at these 3 components. Let’s look at Hue first.

Understanding Hue in Tourmaline

Hue is the component that has the least impact on quality, as it mainly describes the color “sensation” that the human eye perceives. Color purely exists as an interpretation of the light spectrum by the human eye as it passes through a gemstone.

Tourmaline exists in a dizzying array of hues.

Blue Tourmalines are called Indicolite, Greens are called Verdelite, reds, and pinks are known as Rubellite.

Tone in Tourmaline

Tone describes the lightness to darkness of a color sensation in a gemstone. It is a vital component in judging color quality in tourmaline as with all gemstones. It basically refers to how dark or light a gem appears to the eye. The image below shows a green Tourmaline can have a light, medium, or dark tone.

Whatever the color of the Tourmaline, you want to look for a nice medium tone, not too dark, not too light.

This image shows how tone levels range from too light on the left through to too dark on the right.

Color Saturation in Tourmaline

This is the most important of the 3 components when judging the quality of color in Tourmaline. It refers to how deep/vivid the color is.

“THE T-SHIRT ANALOGY”: To use an analogy – if you imagine a brand new red T-shirt purchased from the store. It is intense red when you first purchase it. After a number of washes, the color desaturates out of it until it becomes a pale version of its former self. It was highly saturated when new and desaturated after many washes.

Image showing the “T-Shirt” Analogy of Saturation.
The more saturated the color intensity the finer the Tourmaline.

Hence, when judging a Tourmaline for color quality – the more intense/vivid the color saturation, the more valuable the stone.

Lighting Factors & Dichroism

The light source you view a gem under can affect the color you see so it is always a good idea to check Tourmalines under several light sources before buying. Reds and pinks look better under an incandescent light source whilst the cooler colors like greens and blues look better under daylight or white light.

No study of color in tourmaline would be complete without a look at dichroism. Tourmaline is a strongly dichroic gemstone and as such, the optic axis and the perpendicular axis can show different colors.

Tourmaline displaying dichroism

This effect can create stunning colors face-up, especially under different light sources as this stunning Tourmaline demonstrates –blue and green clearly visible. Another reason to always check your Tourmaline for a “mood change” under different lights.

Understanding Clarity Factors in Tourmaline

As gemstones form in nature, very often imperfections can occur within them. These can take many forms including cracks due to high pressure, crystals of the same species (or others) growing within them, needles, and liquid-filled healed fractures, called “Fingerprints”. These imperfections impact a Tourmaline’s clarity grade and you need to be aware of what to look for when judging clarity.

Types of inclusions you might see in Tourmaline:

“OK, but how do I judge their impact on quality?”

This entirely depends on what color of Tourmaline you are looking at. The GIA groups gemstones into Types depending on their propensity to contain inclusions. Type 1 gems are those that rarely contain inclusions in nature, Type 2 are those that usually contain inclusions and Type 3 are those that are almost always included.

Rubellite and Pink Tourmaline are Type 3 gems and can almost always be expected to display eye-visible inclusions, whilst all other colors are Type 2.

Tanzanite Mining

stvnnj — Wed, 11 Oct 2017 15:46:08 +0000

Tanzanite mining has had a colorful history since Ali Juuyawaatu stumbled upon the blue gemstone in the late 1960’s.
In later years, the conflict has developed between the traditional miners and large scale mining firm Tanzanite One. This article explores the reasons for this.

In the early years, during Tanzania’s dalliance with socialism, the Tanzanite mines were nationalized and run by a state corporation called STAMICO. In 1990, following the demise of socialism in Tanzania, the Tanzanian Government demarcated the mining area; a narrow strip along the Merelani hills, approximately 5 km north of Mererani township, into four Blocks denoted A, B, C and D as shown below.

Block A was awarded to Kilimanjaro Mines Ltd, Blocks B and D to small-scale miners through the Arusha Regional Miners Association (AREMA)and Block C to a graphite miner called Graphtan Inc which subsequently went bust in 1996. Africa was at that stage, seeing an influx of South African companies entering local markets as apartheid ended in their own country and they looked further afield for opportunities.

Graphtan’s licence to Block C was purchased by a South African company called AFGEM. Using the staff and the equipment of Graphtan, AFGEM started producing Tanzanite in 2001. In 2004 the Tanzanite One group acquired AFGEM’s Tanzanite business and assets.

From 2004 to 2015 Tanzanite One group mined Block C constituted as an offshore company registered in Bermuda but listed on the London stock exchange. When South African registered AFGEM sold the mine to the Tanzanite One Group in 2004 the senior staff members were kept. Most of these were South African citizens, including all top management and even the site manager. This led to conflict between the small scale Tanzanian miners who had traditionally mined the area and the foreign newcomers who they perceived as exploiting their resources and repatriating profits with little direct benefit to the Merelani community. This conflict escalated when Tanzanite One elected to follow the business model De Beers had used in the Diamond industry by appointing a series of “sightholders” mainly based in India where they exported their rough production to be cut.

They ostensibly envisaged using this model to control the supply to market with a view to forcing up prices. They established a well run and imaginative “pull marketing campaign” in major developed markets designed to create demand at the consumer level using their Tanzanite Foundation marketing arm. This campaign, centered around their “Mark of Rarity”, strongly implied that unless a Tanzanite was purchased from Tanzanite One and carried its “Mark of Rarity” certificate it was of suspect pedigree.

This further alienated the small-scale miners who prior to Tanzanite One’s entrance to the mining area, had been the discoverers and traditional miners of Tanzanite.

The small-scale mining sector in Mererani is concentrated in Block B and Block
D. There are approximately 700 mines according to AREMA, each of them holding a

Primary Mining License. The PML license is only available for

Tanzanian nationals. Block B and D are heavy concentrated and the mines are located

very close to each other. Whilst all work with a PML, the equipment and technology

used varies from mine to mine. The most basic mines only have a lateral hole in the

ground that they operate with either a ladder or a rope, while some mines use more modern

Working in this sector is no bed of roses. Conditions are tough and working hours long. Most miners work as cooperative groups with a profit share – equal shares of Tanzanite discovered for each miner in the group, but this also means equal shares of nothing when no Tanzanite is found, as frequently happens for months on end in some mining claims. Many miners carry second jobs in farming to alleviate this. This is becoming more prevalent as Tanzanite become scarcer and more difficult to find deep down at over 400 metres.

However, contrary to what some believe, small scale mining is the natural home of most colored gemstone mining (in Sri-Lanka, formerly Ceyon, mining of Sapphires is exclusively reserved by the government for small scale miners only, for direct benefit of the local community).

Whilst proponents of large scale mining will argue that small scale mining is inefficient and dangerous, it also ignores the fact that it has been the path out of poverty for many and a very “grassroots” industry open to anyone with the verve to make it work, much as the original Kimberly Diamond deposits were. There are many great success stories and demonizing the sector is to ignore this fact.

As such, we will leave the final word on this subject to world-renowned Gemologists and Explorers Richard Hughes and Vincent Pardieu :

“We ask you this: Which is more sad — the conditions under which the world’s poor eke out an existence, or the self-righteousness of those who have no direct experience with the problem, but profess an understanding of the solution. Just who is lacking enlightenment? Next time you set eyes on tanzanite, a jade, a ruby, a diamond, or — dare we say it — a cell phone, understand where it comes from. It is not just of the earth, but also from the blood and sweat of thousands of fellow humans, each in their own way struggling forward in life, trying to make things a little bit better for themselves and their families. Wanna make a difference in their lives? Buy what they are risking their lives to produce. Now how’s that for activism? How’s that for revolution?”