What I Have Learned about Paraibas

This blog entry has been a long time coming - I should have written it over a year ago, when I first started buying Paraibas on my inaugural visit in Tucson.

I have seen and admired Paraiba tourmalines ever since I got into the gem business in 2009.  At that point, I knew little about buying and grading gems, but I was already attracted by their neon glow.  I bought one single piece to make a tie bar for my best friend in Germany - I think I paid only about $100/ct to a group of Brazilian guys at a New York Gem show.

Paraiba tourmaline is named after its location, Paraiba, a small town in Northern Brazil.  While tourmaline has been known as a gemstone variety for hundreds of years, this particular vibrant neon variety was only discovered in 1989.  The mine yielded Paraibas for five years, then production stopped and the mines closed.  

What makes Paraiba tourmaline so attractive is its strong blue to turquoise to green and also purple color, caused by the trace mineral copper (I've actually never seen a faceted purple one, not to my knowledge anyway, because I may not have identified it as Paraiba).  Hence the term 'copper bearing'.  Copper bearing tourmalines have since been found in Nigeria, Afghanistan and Mozambique.  But their color is not quite as intense (with Mozambique being the closest).  Often, these other copper bearing tourmalines are also termed "Paraiba" though this is technically false.  "Paraiba color tourmaline" would be more apt.  So when buying Paraibas, it is always worth asking where the gem is from.  Some labs, notably, AGL, can also identify the origin of these tourmalines, though usually pieces larger than 3mm are needed for an origin analysis.  When buying a Paraiba, you should request that the origin is written on the invoice or that it is on the back of the box.  I always have that done.  Also consider working with someone who has a good reputation and if you can, who is a member of the AGTA.  I exclusively buy Paraibas that way.

The single most important factor in pricing Paraiba tourmalines is their color.  The more blue, and the more vibrant, the more expensive they are.  So a vibrant green is less expensive than a vibrant windex blue, with a vibrant turqoise being in the middle.  Even more opaque blue Paraibas can cost more than much cleaner green ones - with much discretion being up to the seller of course.

The photo below shows you four different color grades of Paraiba.  The left two gems are copper bearing but from another location, they show, by comparison at least, a lot more extinction, despite their beautiful color.  The most vibrant gem is the small oval, which also had the highest price tag. The large oval should have cost more because it is also very blue, but it didn't - go figure.  The cheapest was the green pear shape, after that the emerald shape on the right.

Copper Bearing African and Paraiba Tourmaline

Clarity is next in the ranking, though for tourmaline the standards on clarity are pretty low.  Even emeralds are ranked by more stringent standards.

Paraiba tourmaline melee cost approximately 2x as much as diamonds, sometimes 3x as much, in the wholesale market.  Hence the high price tag you see on my blog.  Setting, meanwhile, of Paraiba melee, is difficult.  Pierre, my setter, says it's like setting soap. He's very good and still they crack often.  Softer metal are needed because the way gems are held down is by pushing metal over the gem with sharp tools.  A good eye and steady hands are also needed.  The fact that a lot of Paraiba are included is part of the trouble, inclusions make a gem more brittle and less able to withstand pressure.

Paraiba Tourmaline Cabochons, Including a Rare Cat'e Eye

In terms of Paraiba tourmaline care, avoid ultrasonic if you can.  Some ultrasonic machines contain chemicals that are like acid in their solution, other "shake" so hard that they shatter the gem from within.  So if need be, just a very short bath in ultrasonic is best, and you should always disclose that the gem is a valuable Paraiba.  Steam should be applied from further away - it is very hot (by definition) and high pressure.

And what about availability of the gem, now that the mines are closed?  Well, I do see Paraiba available with many high end dealers in New York (maybe 25% of them).  But there are few pieces, fewer every year, and prices appear to be unlimited toward the top.  Just last week I saw two pieces that were over 100K.  Pretty they were.  One was mostly big - a high domed cab with ridiculous color.  The other was a several carat windex blue faceted oval.  Maybe I can sneak some shots for you in Vegas in early June.

Here are some Paraiba Tourmaline Designs I've made in the last 2-3 months:

Diary From My First Tucson Show

As I reported a couple of blogs ago, this year I took a big step forward for me in my gemstone endeavors because I went to Tucson for the first time.  Hosting over 55 shows with more than 20,000 vendors, the relatively small Arizona town turns into a theater of tents, cramped with visitors from all over the world, buying and selling gems, fossils, minerals.  You have to plan your trip carefully, otherwise you get totally overwhelmed.

AGTA Show Video From Outside the Show

I mainly visited two shows, the AGTA (American Gem Trade Association) Gem Fair which consists of about 200-300 mostly American dealers, and the GJX (Gem and Jewelry Exchange) show in a big tent across the street from the AGTA, which has several hundred foreign vendors.  Just walking up and down all the aisles of each show takes a couple of hours, and because I had a limited budget, I took notes, photos, and collected business cards before I started shopping.  That is, with the exception of Dudley B.'s booth, a wholesale and show dealer only (no web presence, phone calls only, and no retail), who travels all over the world to collect unusual pieces.  I immediately stocked up on unheated Ceylon sapphires from him because his booth, as usual, was overrun with sapphire buyers within 30 minutes of the show's opening - in fact I couldn't get my invoice written up till the end of the day so they just took my business card and stuck it into a baggie until they had time.  Dudley also had some tiny cobalt spinel, demantoids and Vietnamese lavender spinel that I looked at (and bought throughout the week).  Dudley, who is pictured in the photo below, is the small, athletic, health food type, generally quiet until you ask him an interesting gem question ("interesting" being the relevant term here), then he'll open up and chat (mostly about the properties of the gems, the mining, how much can be gotten at what prices, and so forth).  Dudley does all of his own buying and he is connected to families in Sri Lanka and elsewhere who have been supplying him for decades.

Dudley B.

Pretty much by the end of the day I realized that I would not have enough spending money, which is why I started selling Brazilian Paraiba Tourmalines right away (thanks to my FB fans who promoted my link, sent me new customers and requested custom listings).  The owner of the booth with the Paraibas, Jerry, was pretty happy - and impressed I will admit - because every morning I would show up, buy another piece or two of the items I had eyed and photographed before, then sell it and show up again.  It was pretty funny actually.  Because Paraiba prices are astronomically high, buying a bunch for stock was out of the question for me.  According to Josh L. from my lab, I made some nice purchases there (I am currently getting some of the Paraibas certified for copper content).  Sadly, filming was not allowed in either show but I took a brief clip from the gallery at the AGTA show from the top, outside of the actual show floor.  These shows are heavily guarded and everyone worries about thievery (makes sense...).

Brazilian Paraiba Tourmalines

 Another interesting vendor was a small team of Israelis operating out of Thailand, whom I met at the GJX pavillion.  These guys mine almost exclusively spinel (you know how much I like those) but only from Vietnam, Sri Lanka and Burma (not Tanzania).  Their collection of Vietnamese spinel from the Trumchum mines was incredible, they said it took them 3 months to collect about 200 pieces, and they do not display those until they get to Tucson where they hope to sell them all in one shot, directly to jewelers and other gem dealers.  All single pear shapes are set aside until a match turns up.  Consequently, there were about 10 sets of matched pear pairs of which I bought three. Some of these spinels also have color change properties, they exhibit soft hues of pink in incandescent lighting.

 Vietnamese spinel

 Vietnamese spinel

On my last day, I got to chat with some German dealers that featured Hauynite, a (super expensive and tiny) gem that is only available in one place in the world, the Eiffel in Germany.  The gems are a strong cobalt blue and don't require treatment.  They are soft though.  Anyway, I did buy some melees. 

Hauynite

My final treat was a visit of my friend Jochen's show at the Arizona Mineral and Fossil Show at the Hotel Tuscon City - an indoor outdoor show where vendors set up in their hotel rooms with the lower rows sprawling onto the yard.  Jochen, a seasoned and well traveled geologist with a weathered appearance, doesn't sell fine quality or cut gems, he mainly deals in rough and specimens that he buys directly from Tanzania, Madagascar, Kenya and even the Congo.  Aside from knowing just about everything there's to know about mineral specimens, Jochen also speaks French and Swahili, so he can get around the more isolated parts of the world with ease.

Arizona Mineral and Fossil Show, Outside and Inside the Shop of Jentsch Mineralien

My only regret about my visit is that I didn't get to see much of the Arizona landscape except from my hotel room at the Westin (I got two free nights as a VIB - Very Important Buyer).  But I will go again next year, and I'll try to stay an extra two days during which I will (force myself to) go to some of the national parks, or maybe visit a ghost town and an old copper mine.