Can a tanzanite's origin be proven?
Yes, trivially, and it tells you nothing. Every tanzanite is from Merelani, so origin distinguishes no two stones. Traceability is the harder question.
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What we have found out about tanzanite, with the sources attached: how it is found, judged, cut, worn and cared for.
Yes, trivially, and it tells you nothing. Every tanzanite is from Merelani, so origin distinguishes no two stones. Traceability is the harder question.
READEffectively all of it, and it was probably brown in the ground. What the heating does, and why unheated is a premium worth declining.
READAbrasion polishes out. A chip usually means recutting and losing weight. A clean split along the cleavage plane generally means the stone is finished.
READEvery setting operation puts pressure on a stone with a plane it can split along. Buying loose and commissioning means setting it once.
READTanzanite is the violet-blue variety of zoisite, mined commercially in one place on Earth. Its colour is decided as much by the cutter as by the crystal.
READTanzanite is geologically rarer than diamond and usually costs less. Both are true, and why they do not contradict each other is the useful part.
READOne hillside produced two new gemstones in 1967. Both are coloured by vanadium, and one of them is never treated.
READColour saturation carries most of the price, size is tangled up in it, and treatment barely moves it. What a quote is really made of, and why this one has none.
READOne deposit, about eight square miles, and a formation sequence that had to happen in a particular order. The geology is remarkable without the sales argument.
READThe one decision that matters is whether your stone reads blue or violet. The rest is preference, and it is offered here as preference.
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