24th Year - Tanzanite

A unique, blue-lavender color. Tanzanites are 1000x rarer than diamonds and are so popular that all tanzanite will only be available to a single generation. Almost all tanzanites on the market have been heat-treated to 500°C (932°F) to produce a deeper color. This is an essential process because the rough form comes in a brown-yellow color. The stone can be seen as dark blue, green-yellow and red-purple. Blue tanzanite is more desirable than purple. Lesser stones may have a brownish color due to the mixing of blue, purple and green. In July 1967, a tailor named Manuel d'Souza was prospecting for rubies in Africa when a group of Masai tribesmen led him to a deposit of blue stones. The Masai held to a legend that cattle herders of their tribe had first noticed this stone some 30 years previously, after a fire caused by lightning burned areas in Tanzania. The herders noticed that brown (zoisite) crystals had turned a deep blue-purple due to the heat from the fire.