Buying pre-owned tanzanite jewellery: what to check
Second-hand tanzanite can be good value, but years of wear show on a stone at 6 to 7 on the Mohs scale. How to inspect it, what repairs cost, and your rights.
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Choosing, wearing and caring for tanzanite, and what to ask before you buy.
Tanzanite jewellery for men: what wears well and what does not
Rings take the knocks, cufflinks barely any. Which men's pieces suit a stone at 6 to 7 on the Mohs scale, which settings protect it, and which colours read best.
READHow should tanzanite be stored, at home and travelling?
Separate, soft-lined, away from harder stones, dust and sudden heat. Why storage matters more for tanzanite than most gems, and how to travel with it safely.
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My tanzanite is damaged. What can be repaired?
Abrasion polishes out. A chip usually means recutting and losing weight. A clean split along the cleavage plane generally means the stone is finished.
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What decides the price of a tanzanite
Colour 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.
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Carat or colour in tanzanite: which matters more?
Colour wins, nearly always. But in tanzanite colour deepens with size, so the real question is the smallest stone showing the colour you want. How to judge it.
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What does tanzanite go with? Metals, colours and sets
The 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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Can you wear tanzanite every day? The honest care answer
Tanzanite is 6 to 7 on the Mohs scale with a cleavage plane. That is a specific weakness, not a general fragility, and it can be worked around.
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Giving tanzanite as a gift, and what to say about it
A pendant or earrings solve most of it: no size to guess and no durability conversation. The harder part is what you say about the stone.
READInsuring and valuing a tanzanite
A valuation is a replacement figure, not a grade. For a stone with no grading scale, the description attached to it does more work than the number.
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Proposing with a tanzanite: get the size right
Resizing a tanzanite ring is a real operation, not a routine one. The usual reassurance that it can be sorted out later is weaker than it sounds.
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Wearing a tanzanite ring with a wedding band
The thing most likely to damage the tanzanite is the other ring. Not doorframes. The band sitting against it for sixteen hours a day.
READHow tanzanite is graded, and why AAA means nothing
There is no standard grading scale for tanzanite. GIA evaluates the stone but does not grade it, and AAA is only a description the seller wrote themselves.
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How to buy tanzanite online without getting burned
Photos flatter tanzanite more than most gems. What to ask a seller for, how to judge colour from video, and how EU return rights work, including the exceptions.
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Tanzanite engagement rings: the honest durability answer
Tanzanite is softer than sapphire and it cleaves. That rules it out for some hands and not others. What actually decides it is the setting and the wearer.
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How to buy tanzanite: what to judge, in what order
Buy the colour, in the largest size that colour comes in, from somebody who will tell you what has been done to the stone. Everything else is detail.
READHow to tell if a tanzanite is real
You cannot reliably tell a real tanzanite from a good simulant by looking. What you can safely check, what proves nothing, and what will cost you a gem.
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