ModernJeweler.com |

Settle down, folks. Let’s call this meeting of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Tourmaline to order. On the agenda today is the mess in Mozambique, that hot new tourmaline producer on Africa’s southeastern coast between South Africa and Tanzania.

Early last month, the government banned all gem mining, specifically citing sales of recently discovered tourmalines to unregistered buyers from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Senegal, and Tanzania, among other offending neighbors. According to official sources, these dealers were paying pittances for gems they knew would fetch vast sums in Asia.

Before you start raising a ruckus about government interference in free markets, you might take a peek at the peak prices paid for aqua-blue Mozambique tourmalines at recent Christie’s Hong Kong jewelry sales. On May 30, 2007, a platinum ring and drop suite with three blue beauties from Mozambique weighing, respectively, 8.93, 5.81, and 5.87 carats commanded $296,400, or $14,382 per carat. On November 28, a 17.49 carat stone went for $149,175. That’s $8,530 per carat. This sky high price for a single Mozambique stone must have been the final straw for someone in the ministry of mines.

We all know why these stones fetched sky high prices. They were lawfully listed as Paraiba tourmalines in Christie’s catalogs—and had certifying documents from leading gem laboratories supporting this claim.

Now I know what some of you are thinking. How can gems from Mozambique be listed as coming from a mine in Brazil? As Robert Wise, author of Secrets of the Gem Trade, remarks, “Calling tourmaline from Mozambique ‘Paraiba’ is like calling ruby from Madagascar ‘Burmese.’”

Nevertheless, it was perfectly legal for Christie’s to call tourmalines from Africa by a place-name in South America. In 2006, a group of gem labs, including GIA, AGTA, and Gubelin, agreed to allow tourmalines reminiscent of those from Paraiba to be called such if they contained traces of copper as a principal coloring agent. In other words, blue or green copper-bearing (known as cuprian) tourmalines from anywhere in the world can now be called “Paraiba.”

I see a hand raised in the back of the room. What’s your question? The gentleman wants to know the following: If cuprian tourmaline can be called “Paraiba,” can chromium-bearing ruby be called “Burmese”? That, of course, was the point of Mr. Wise’s wisecrack. You’re not the only jeweler who is upset by this precedent. Jason Baskin, a designer with The Gem Vault in Flemington, New Jersey, says, “Allowing a specific locality name to serve as a generic term is dishonest and deceptive. It opens the door to all sorts of dangerous marketing mischief.”