Tourmaline de force

Three years ago, big jewelry houses laughed at Sam Sulimanov, owner of Samuel Sylvio Designs in New York City, when he tried to persuade them to purchase Paraiba tourmaline. The reason? The merchants did not sell “semi-precious stones,” he recollects. A year and a half later, Sulimanov was the one laughing. They called him asking for a pair of Brazilian ovals for a client and were shocked at the price. “They just didn’t know what it was,” he says.

Brazilian brilliance
Today, many know about Paraiba tourmaline. Its distinctive “Windex blue” and “Scope green” colors — which no other tourmalines exhibit — result from traces of copper and manganese. The stone gets its name from Brazil’s Paraiba state, where it was initially found, but there are also deposits in Mozambique and Nigeria.

“It is a generally accepted term that material from both Brazil and Africa are called paraiba, but it’s a preference of people in the industry how they describe it — with a capital ‘P’ or not,” says Doug Hucker, CEO of the American Gem Trade Association (AGTA). He adds that his group has no rules for the stone’s nomenclature (see box).

Some gemologists say this tourmaline variety is rarer than pink diamonds, and because of limited availability, its prices have skyrocketed. The asking price for an oval-shaped, 4.61-carat rock of Paraiba origin is $150,000 a carat, according to Stuart Robertson, research director at trade publication GemGuide in Glenview, Illinois.

“I have not seen a non-Brazilian stone hit that vibrant, electric neon intensity of color,” he says. “The Mozambique stones are attractive, but they trade below the price of Brazilian stones.”

Los Angeles-based jewelry designer Victor Velyan uses a lot of Mozambique tourmaline — also called cuprian elbaite — in his high-end pieces because that’s what’s available. But he’ll also use Brazilian goods “every time I can get my hands on it,” he says.

Low supply, high demand
Those occasions are infrequent, though, because very little new material is being mined.

“Supply is nil,” reports Bill Larson of Pala Gems in Pala, California. Larson was one of the first to deal in the material in the late 1980s, buying and cutting 22 pounds of rough, of which he sold 99% over five years. Early on, the Japanese bought up a lot of the goods, which were priced cheaply in comparison to today: $150 to $750 a carat.

Although Paraiba tourmaline still lacks the name recognition of the Big Three stones — ruby, sapphire and emerald — admirers continue to grow. Among them are working women who fear diamonds might attract the wrong sort of attention, according to Sulimanov: “Women with power who are afraid to wear a big diamond feel safe wearing Paraiba because nobody knows what it is.”

Still, the price tag can be an obstacle to ownership for many potential buyers. “Customers now are seeing prices that say, ‘Don’t buy me,’ even though the demand is there,” says Larson.

Wait, what do we call it?
by Rachel Beitsch-Feldman

What’s in a name? A fair bit of controversy, it seems, when it comes to Paraiba tourmaline. Should the term “Paraiba” apply when these stones come from sources other than Brazil? And should the “P” be capital or lowercase?

“The discovery of cuprian tourmalines in Nigeria and especially in Mozambique led to numerous and sometimes controversial debates on the nomenclature and usage of the term,” writes Claudio Milisenda, director of DSEF German Gem Lab, in the summer 2018 issue of InColor magazine. In fact, in 2008, the CEO of supplier Paraiba.com attempted to sue several gem organizations for “hijacking” the Brazilian region’s name, according to news reports. By using the term to refer to stones from other locales, he claimed, they were misleading the public and devaluing the rare Brazilian tourmalines in which he traded.

However, a judge dismissed the case, and the industry continues to use “Paraiba” to describe any tourmalines that fit this variety’s description. Both the World Jewellery Confederation (CIBJO) and the Laboratory Manual Harmonisation Committee (LMHC) — which works to standardize grading labs’ terminology — maintain that “green to blue tourmalines colored by copper and manganese may also be called ‘Paraiba tourmaline’ in the trade, regardless of their origin,” Milisenda reports.

What about the “P”? Well, although the LMHC itself does not capitalize the letter, many labs and gem dealers do.

“On our reports, we write all Paraiba tourmalines with a capital ‘P,’ regardless of origin, and provided they pass the criteria (we basically apply the LMHC definition),” says Daniel Nyfeler, managing director of Swiss-based Gübelin Gem Lab. Gübelin also adds an information sheet to all its reports on this stone, he continues, “to make sure that people (especially the end consumer, which is the one we have to protect) understand that the term ‘Paraiba’ is a color variety. Hence, also African stones can get the Paraiba name.”

That said, Milisenda stresses the importance of origin determination, “because Brazilian specimens are significantly higher-valued than their African counterparts.”

Image (left to right): samuelsylvio.com; omiprive.com; grazielagems.com; ivynewyork.com

Article from the Rapaport Magazine - October 2018. To subscribe click here.