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The
tourmaline is a unique miracle of colour. The
gemstone comes in green, red, blue, yellow, but
there are also colourless specimens and black
ones. Often two or more colours are found in a
single tourmaline crystal. Also rare and very
highly esteemed are tourmalines which appear to
change their colour and cat's eye tourmalines.
Having said all that, green is regarded as the
classical tourmaline colour. If you ask a gemstone
merchant about a tourmaline, green, in most cases,
is the first colour he will think of. |
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However,
even among the green tourmalines there is a broad
spectrum. Some of them are very light, others so dark
that the green colour can only be recognised when the
stone is held against the light. There are green
tourmalines in fine leek hues, but also in intense
yellowish-green, olive green and brownish-green nuances.
And there are especially wonderful tourmalines in the
range from blue-green to dark bottle-green. These,
indeed, are its best colours. They are rare and much
sought-after. Green tourmalines are very popular as
precious stones among women, but many men like wearing
them too.
In the
trade, tourmalines are sometimes offered with a prefix
on their name which, at the first glance, would appear
to hint at their origin. A bottle-green tourmaline, for
example, may also be referred to as a 'Brazilian
tourmaline'. At this point it is useful to know that
this does not necessarily mean that the stone comes from
Brazil. Earlier, it was more or less the rule that
bottle-green tourmalines came almost exclusively from
Brazil, whilst stones which were green or blue-green
generally originated from Africa. |
