Rubellite, indicolite, verdelite, chrome, canary, watermelon, cuprian. A single mineral covers a range no other gem family can.
Paraíba means cuprian elbaite, confirmed by chemistry — not a colour that resembles it. We write what a stone is, and what it is not.
Origin, treatment and weight on every listing. Heat is disclosed. Where a laboratory report exists, it is shown.
Striated prisms, waterworn pebbles, bi-colour sections. We sell facet-grade rough by the piece and by coherent parcels — same variety, same colour range, narrow weight band — so a cutter knows what they are buying.
See rough parcelsDutch traders brought it from Ceylon in the early 1700s and found it pulled ash out of a fire. A Russian crown jewel called a ruby for two centuries turned out to be one. It took until 1989 for the stone to produce a colour nobody had a name for.
Read the historyBuying notes, laboratory results, nomenclature, and the tests we run before a stone is listed. Written by the desk, for people who would rather understand a stone than be sold one.
Read the journalFive pages, written to the standard we would want if we were the ones buying. It is the same knowledge we buy with.
The formula, what sits in each site, six species out of thirty, and which ion makes which colour.
Twelve varieties, how to judge hue, saturation and tone — and what Paraíba is actually allowed to mean.
Refractive index, birefringence, specific gravity, pleochroism, and what the instruments cannot tell you.
Brazil, Mozambique, Nigeria, Afghanistan, Madagascar and the rest — and how origin is determined.
From turmali in Ceylon and the Dutch ash-puller to a colour nobody had a name for in 1989.
Variety, colour, weight range and budget. We buy across every source, and we will tell you plainly when what you are describing does not exist at that price.
