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Legend has it that more than fifty years ago, after a forest fire on Kilimajaro, some Masais treasure hunters were the lucky ones to find some small blue stones that glowed with high intensity among all those ashes that the fire had left behind. He passed. Today is known by the name of Tanzanites.

The discovery of those treasure hunters spread, and many more groups of fortune hunters began to search each mountain in search of what they thought were sapphires. Sapphires of a much higher quality than those found up to that moment, but it was not until two years later that gemological analysis ruled that it was not the gem known as Sapphire, but a new gemstone that had been hidden for more than six thousand years, zoisite. Blue ( Tanzanite ).

Its undeniable beauty thanks to its color that ranges from ultramarine to sapphire blue, and its scarcity began to attract the attention of the great jewelers. However, it was Tiffany & Co who decided to bet on this precious jewel in 1968.

What is Tanzanite?

As their name was not considered very interesting as it caused confusion with some English words, they decided to change it to Tanzanite, the stone from Tanzania.

Despite its beauty and scarcity globally, it is not part of the four most sought-after gemstones; diamond, ruby, sapphire, and emerald. But it could very well be since this stone is only located in an area near Kilimanjaro in northern Tanzania. Its value grows every year as there is high demand, and there are fewer and fewer active deposits on Kilimanjaro in the north of Tanzania. Its value increases every year as there is high demand and fewer and fewer active deposits of Tanzanite.

Why had Tanzanite stone not been discovered earlier?

Because raw Tanzanite stone, without heating or polishing, is usually a reddish-brown hue, not attractive to the human eye. So it was not until the fire mentioned above that it reached more than 600º Celsius and was transformed into the striking color that today so much represents it.

How to know if Tanzanite is genuine?

Tanzanite is characterized by a substantial variety of colors, ranging from sapphire blue, violet, or even green. Regarding its clarity, it is a transparent gem.

Its hardness, 6.5 on the Mohs scale, which measures the hardness of minerals. Hardness is the opposition materials offer to alterations such as abrasion, penetration, cutting, scratching, and permanent deformation.

This scale of measurement was created by the German geologist Friedrich Mohs in 1982. We could say that the Mohs scale is a relative and quantitative scale, consisting of 10 minerals as a reference ordered from 1 to 10.

The first mineral on the list, which occupies the number one position, is talc, ranking it as the softest mineral, and at 10 is the diamond, the hardest mineral.