First discovered only as recently as 1967 at the foot of majestic Mount Kilamanjaro in Tanzania, this gemstone is renowned for its exquisite combination of purple and blue hues. The retail chain, Tiffany's, named this new find Tanzanite and proceeded to market the gemstone as an affordable alternative to expensive blue sapphire. The marketing campaign was very successful and a new product was born. Little did they know that Tanzanite's popularity would soon rival that of sapphires, rubies and emeralds!
Tanzanite's beautiful color results from a couple of factors. First, it is a tri-choric stone. This means that it gives off different colors when viewed from different directions, or axes. In Tanzanite, one axis is blue, another a shade of violet and the last reddish brown or bronze. Second, after cutting, the stone is heated to induce a permanent color change - usually from a brownish to a bluish/purplish color. Without this heat treatment, Tanzanite would be considerably less attractive and virtually unmarketable.
Even though the stone amazingly transforms into a gorgeous color, it has one major drawback. It is very soft and brittle for a gemstone (only a 6.5 on the Moh's scale). Jewelry benchman with no gemological training, mistaking Tanzanite for Sapphire, have frequently destroyed stones. Everyday wear on the hand practically guarantees scuffing over time.
After numerous customer requests for a harder, more affordable gemstone, we experimented with several materials to produce the desired colors. We found one of the answers in a modified Laboratory-Grown Sapphire. With its terrific durability (9 on the Moh's scale), all that was needed was to change the trace elements slightly in order to copy the color of Tanzanite. We call this color Coranite® and it is best described as appearing "blue with a hint of purple."
It took us more than 3 years to produce the more purple Tanzanite simulation. The stone was launched at a very successful press conference at the Tucson Gem Show on February 4, 1996, and immediately became one of our hottest sellers! This new gemstone, Tanavyte®, is garnet based with a hardness of 8.5 and is best described as appearing "purple with a hint of blue."
Our ability to offer both colors of tanzanite in a simulation which not only matches color but does so in a hard and durable material, provides a reasonably priced alternative when one desires the beauty of Tanzanite, but can not afford the price.