The popular icy pastel blue color is created by exposing colorless topaz to irradiation and then heat. Lighter colors are created by electrons and the darker blue known as London blue is created by exposure to neutrons. The process can take minutes or years, as high-energy processes require that the topaz is stored before it can be released safely. The most common blue topazes produced by radiation are:
* Sky Blue Topaz - which is a moderately strong light blue topaz resulting from treating colorless topaz with gamma rays from Cobalt 60 or electrons by electron accelerators. The treatment is then followed by heat treatment.
* London Blue Topaz - this slightly grayish medium dark to dark blue topaz results from treating colorless topaz with neutrons produced in nuclear reactors. This process is also followed by heat treatment.
* Swiss Blue Topaz - is a vivid medium, to medium dark blue topaz produced by combining neutron treatment with electron treatment, followed by heat treatment.
Tanzanite is relatively new to the colored stone galaxy. As the most common story of the tanzanite mining boom goes, in 1967 a Masai tribesman stumbled upon a cluster of highly transparent, intense violet-to-blue crystals weathering out of the earth in Merelani, an area of northern Tanzania. He alerted a local fortune hunter named Manuel d'Souza, who quickly registered four mining claims.
Within a short time, 90 more claims appeared in the same 20-square-mile area. No one was quite sure what the beautiful crystals were, but everyone wanted to lay claim to the profits they were certain to produce. The new gem would eventually be known as tanzanite, and it would, at times, rival the Big 3 in popularity.
Tiffany & Company recognized its potential as an international seller and made a deal to become its main distributor. Tiffany named the gem after the country it came from, and promoted it with a big publicity campaign in 1968. Almost overnight, tanzanite was popular with leading jewelry designers and other gem professionals, as well as with customers who had an eye for beautiful and unusual gems.
Abramson's Jewelers
449 Broadway Bayonne, NJ 07002 info@abramsonsjewelers.net
Copyright © 2022 Abramson's Jewelers - All Rights Reserved.