Back in 1989, a new color of tourmaline was discovered in the state of Paraiba, Brazil. A breathtaking neon blue/green/teal color, this rare gem was sold for as much as $15,000 per carat. It was rare, it was gorgeous, it was intense, and now, it's pretty much gone. There are small pockets of this color of tourmaline being mined still in Paraiba, and even Nigeria and Madagascar, but they're small, heavily occluded and pretty darned expensive.
So what is Paraiba Topaz? For starters, let me make it abundantly clear that this topaz is merely a look-alike of the Paraiba Tourmaline. The topaz is natural, in that it was mined from the ground, but it has been enhanced.
Back in the late '90's, early '00's, a small company in California was working on a method of treating Topaz to make it look like London Blue Topaz, but without the expense of having it treated at a nuclear reactor, etc... They would bake a chemical of some kind right into the skin of the topaz using extremely high heat and pressure. The problem was, the stones kept turning out too green. One bright soul observed it looked a lot like the Paraiba Tourmaline, and Voila!... a market was created for their "Too green for London Blue Topaz experiment". We are using the term "Paraiba" as a unique color descriptor, because no other term would describe the color nor relate to the natural stone better.
A really cool color, there's nothing really like it.
Very pretty, and with a single CZ accent at the bail.
This stone is set into a sturdy 4 prong basket. We cast our own mountings and will never use flimsy "snap tight" stuff... It allows the most show of stone for the least expense in silver. It's a good stable setting that doesn't set you back a month just to get one.
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