Pink Tourmaline

Description

In terms of clarity, Mozambique Pink Tourmaline is typically Type III gems. Thus, they almost always contain inclusions. (Needle-like inclusions can also create cat’s eye gems). Due to their scarcity and beauty, collectors and jewelry buyers value untreated, eye-clean or better rubellite gems most highly.

Though tourmaline occurs in virtually every colour, deep pinkish red to slightly purplish red are the most desirable colours

With a hardness of 7 to 7.5 and no cleavage, tourmalines off all types have good durability.

In recent years, African deposits have yielded cleaner rough. However, these African finds often show brown tinges and rarely approach the ruby-like red of gems from older Brazilian sources. Mozambique Pink Rubellite Tourmaline are tourmalines with reasonably saturated dark pink to red colors and medium to dark tones. They make excellent jewelry stones, and ruby-red colored specimens without orange or brown overtones are highly prized.

Trace amounts of manganese create rubellite’s natural pink to red color. You may encounter light pink stones labelled as rubellites, but these are more properly considered pink tourmalines.

A Rubellite will appear significant darker when viewed down the C-axis of the crystal and this must be taken into account when cutting the material. Poor cutting can result in a loss of transparency and brilliance, especially in darker specimens.