Spring is a time of new growth and rebirth. And the intense brilliant green of the Emerald, May’s birthstone, is as refreshing to the eyes as a spring garden after a rain. Emerald’s precious green color is caused by small amounts of chromium and enhanced by traces of iron. Within its depths are often tiny fractures or inclusions, which the French call “jardin,” or garden, because of their resemblance to foliage. The Egyptians were known to engrave Emeralds with the symbol for foliage to represent eternal youth, and to bury these jewels with their dead. The ancient Romans associated this gemstone with fertility and rebirth, and dedicated it to Venus, the goddess of love and beauty.
In the sixteenth century, the Spanish Conquistadors were amazed to find the native people wearing Emeralds larger and more magnificent than any they had ever seen. Although the natives attempted to hide their Emerald mines, the Spaniards soon discovered and conquered most of them. But it took twenty years before they found the abundant mining operation held by the Muzo Indians, and another thirty years to overtake this aggressive tribe. The Muzo mine was in the area known today as Colombia, and it remains the source of the most prized Emerald specimens. Other sources of Emeralds are Brazil, Zimbabwe, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Madagascar, Nigeria, and Russia.
The Emerald is a member of the beryl family of minerals. The green crystals grow slowly within metamorphic rocks and are restricted in size by the rock, making large Emeralds rare and costly. Although this gemstone is relatively hard and durable, it must be protected from blows because the inclusions found within make it susceptible to breaking.
Some people believe that wearing an Emerald brings wisdom, growth, and patience. And as any couple in a long-term relationship would agree, all of these qualities are essential for a successful and lasting love. This may explain why a gift of Emerald for an anniversary — or anytime — is considered symbolic of love and fidelity.
Angelina Jolie’s stunning Emerald ring and earrings at the Oscars 2009.
Do you like watermelon? How about a semi-precious gemstone called watermelon tourmaline?
Tourmaline is a crystal silicate mineral and is one of the most desirable gemstones in the market.You can find most of the tourmaline colours in large sizes. Some tourmalines are zoned in a combination of colours so you can see more than one colour in some stones like watermelon tourmaline. In the trade, people call this stone watermelon tourmaline because of its colour combination, outside the stone is green and in the middle is reddish pink like a watermelon.
Talented gem-cutters often take advantage of tourmaline’s amazing color zoning to create a unique gemstone.
Tourmaline’s colours have many different causes; for example during tourmaline’s crystal growing, colour zoning occurs. Manganese causes red and pink and traces of Iron and Titanium make the stone green and blue .
Fine Tourmalines are sourced in Brazil. You can also find them in other countries like Nigeria, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Russia and USA.
As you may know gemstones are different in hardness and toughness that means some may break or scratch more easily than others.
It is very important for a designer to know how hard or soft each stone is. For instance a soft gemstone is not a good option for a Cocktail ring because it will chip after wearing a few times. You may better use soft stones for pendants or earrings.
As a Gemologist , I use Moh’s hardness scale to see how hard or soft the gemstone is. In this scale, number 1 is the softest and number 10 is the hardest degree. For example diamond‘s hardness is 10 in Moh’s scale and coral is 3-4. Tourmaline’s hardness is 7 – 7.5
I took some photos of a few Tourmalines and attached them here, hope you enjoy them.
Faraz Dalaee
GIA Gemologist at Toranj London
Tourmaline
Total weight: 26.89 Carats
Watermelon Tourmaline
Multicoloured Tourmaline. Total weight: 57.66 Carats
Pink tourmaline. Total weight: 4.79 Carats
Tourmaline's Crystal. Total Weight: 16.88 Carats
Photos by: Faraz Dalaee
One of the beauties of my job in gemstones world is that I learn or see new things everyday and I never get bored. Each gem has its own character, beauty and mystery. Some of them have amazing colour, some showing off with their colour-changing and some with their inclusions which I call hidden secrets.
Stone Sizes and shapes are other interesting aspects of the gems .Creative stone cutters with a good taste, sometimes come up with interesting ideas which help them to create a piece of art.
This morning, one of my diamond dealer friends sent me his diamond stock inventory and in that list there was a very interesting fancy shape diamond. This GIA certified, 3.03 carat diamond is F colour grade and its clarity grade is VS1 and has a horse shape. If you like horses I should say this horse can be a very nice piece of jewellery and you can keep it in the family for generations.
Measurements: 7.55mm x 10.69mm x 6.13mm
Regards,
Faraz
Here is the new member of our Golbarg collection, Golbarg Petite.Golbarg Petite is a very delicate, beautiful and elegant pendant that you can wear every day as well as for special occasions.like the rest of Golbarg collections only 99 copies of this piece will ever be made and its details are as followed:
- 18K yellow gold
- Approximately 1.45 ct of excellent quality Tsavorite Garnet with fantastic cut & color
- Approximately 25 mm diameter
- It comes with 18 inch / 46 cm , 18K fine yellow gold chain
You can check it out on our website : http://www.toranjlondon.com/collections/golbarg/golbarg-pendant-1.html
Regards,
Sara Peymanpour
Posted on: August 16th, 2009 Tsavorite
Tsavorite is a young gemstone from Garnet family with a very long history, which was discovered by Campbell R. Bridges in 1967. This Scottish-born geologist was looking for gemstones in north-east of Tanzania, near the famous Tsavo national park where is the habitat of snakes & lions, when he discovered a potato-like object with beautiful green grains.
The newly discovered gemstone had extraordinarily beautiful vivid green colour, great transparency & excellent brilliance. Campbell bridges started looking for Tsavorite deposits in Kenya and to protect himself from wild animals he began by living in a tree-house and He used a python to stand guard over his cache of coloured gems. In 1974, Tiffany & Co introduced Tsavorite in USA and then to International markets.
Unfortunately, Campbell Bridges was killed by a group of people armed with arrows, spears and machetes last week near Tsavo National Park, in an apparent dispute over mining rights in southeast Kenya.
Why Tsavorite is so desirable? First of all, it is for its vivid, radiant green which is more consistent in colour than Emerald. Secondly, Tsavorite is valuable because of its great brilliance that is far more than Emerald.
This gemstone, unlike Emerald, does not need any oil treatment. Compared to Emerald, Tsavorite is less likely to crack or break and therefore is more wearable. It also has a relatively more reasonable price.
Rough Tsavorites follow one of these two routs depending on their size: Small rough goes to cut in Thiland, India and Sri Lanka but large fine rough goes to German cutting centres in Idar-Oberstein. Tsavorites over 3 carats are rare & very valuable.
Tsavorites we have used in our Golbarg collection were sourced from Idar-Oberstein in Germany and are from excellent colour, cut, clarity and lustre. They were matched and cut specially for Toranj London.
Regards,
Faraz Dalaee
How time flies when you love what you do! It has been a year since Toranj London was born and I look back with pleasure and see what we have done in this very short time:
- Created three very successful collections: Ancient Blue, Golbarg & Shah Abbasi
- Exhibited at the Tower of London and next to Crown Jewells as a part of first Coutts London Jewellery Week. We were so privileged to have our first showcase in such a great venue and received great feedback on our pieces.
- Our Golbarg Necklace was a finalist in Adventurous Moissanite competition and we received the stones needed to make the piece – worth £500 – as an award from Charles & Colvard.
- Our Golbarg Ring was selected as a finalist in Holts Academy Design Award 2008.
- Exhibited at International Jewellery London 2008, the UK’s only dedicated jewellery event, where the most talented, cutting edge British and International designers and manufacturers are hand selected to create a showcase. Our collections received a fantastic amount of interest from both public and buyers.
- Charles & Colvard showcased our Golbarg necklace alongside other four shortlisted pieces at International Jewellery London 2008.
- Collaborated with British Museum and they showed and sold our pieces alongside their Babylon exhibition. Then we designed Shah Abbasi collection especially for their exhibition “Shah Abbas: The remaking of Iran” which was showed and sold by British Museum.
- Our online boutique was launched.
- Our client list grew rapidly.
- Started a group page and a fan page on Facebook.
- And right now we are working on a few new collections with younger & more contemporary designs, lower price tags and more suitable for everyday wear. They will be launched soon.
Well, we had a fantastic year and would like to share our joy & happiness with you by sending you a gift.
We have a “10% off” gift voucher for each and every one of you. This gift voucher will take 10% off your next purchase, no matter how many pieces you buy, and it is valid until 25 December 2009.
To receive your gift please sign up to our website at www.toranjlondon.com or directly to our Log In page and create an account, a gift voucher will be sent to your email address shortly. Please remember to sign up for your gift before Monday 31 August 2009. Those who have an account already, will receive their gifts next week.
Thank you very much for supporting us & have a nice weekend.
Regards,
Sara Peymanpour
One of the most difficult jobs to do when you design a product is to choose or design a suitable packaging for it. As a good industrial designer – Well, I still design & make all sorts of things, trying to stay true to my background – I believe that packaging is 50% of any product you sell, buy or design. So from the first day of establishing Toranj London, Faraz Dalaee & I were looking for an appropriate range of boxes for our collections; something elegant, attractive and durable.
A jewellery box first of all should be able to protect the jewellery piece. With these days of online shopping, it should be strong enough to survive the shipping process and reach the recipient in perfect conditions. Then it should be beautiful, inviting and graceful. You should also have a good feeling when you touch and smell it. We also wanted a long lasting packaging, a box that our clients would keep and reuse.
In total, because your product’s packaging is your brand’s ambassador and plays a very important role in brand identity, we were looking for something that would reflect Toranj London’s values.
And last September, after a long time of looking at every possible corner of every trade show, we finally found what we were looking for; these delicious cinnamon suede boxes. They are unique, exciting, soft, heavy and presentable. They show our pieces in the best way possible & we waited four long months to receive them.
I hope you like them as much as we do.
Regards,
Sara Peymanpour
Toranj Ltd successfully launched its new collection “Golbarg” at International Jewellery London 2008. This amazing collection made of 18k yellow gold and fine
Tsavorites attracted lots of interest and attention from buyers, other designers and members of the public.
This is a limited edition collection and can be ordered right now. Golbarg collection will also be available in Kabiri jewellery gallery in London from October 2008
Holts Academy of Jewellery announced short listed enteries for this year’s Awards. Sara Peymanpour has been short listed for “Jewellery Design” category by entering Golbarg Ring.
The winners will be announced on Thursday 12th June 2008 at The Crypt of St Etheldrea’s Church in a ceremony. This years ceremony will showcase entries and be filmed by QVC. Attendance at the event will be reserved for those who have been short listed for an Award.
Submissions will be judged by the following individuals:
Peter Taylor – Director of Technology & Training, The Goldsmiths’ Company
Jennifer Bloy FRSA FIPG– chairman for the Institute of Professional Goldsmiths
Jacqueline Gestetner – of Jacqueline’s Choices
Jack Meyer – Director of Technology, H3D
Aldyth Crowther – Jewellery Industry Consultant and Senior Consultant to Holts Academy
We will showcase our latest collections at the Tower of London, next to Great Britain’s Crown Jewels, as a part of first coutts London Jewellery Week, from 12 to 15 June 2008.
You are cordially invited to come & visit us at the Tower of London.
