Gemstones
Swala Gem Traders
| Monday 11 February 2008 | no comment |
Many accounts of the discovery of tanzanite have found their way into print, most of them quite misleading or simply wrong.
| Monday 11 February 2008 | no comment |
Magnificent Jewels - Sotherby's - Geneva May 21st 1997.
Getting into a Sotherby's sale ten years ago with big tsavorite garnets wasn't that easy. Mark was quite proud to have been able to work this out.
| Friday 8 February 2008 | 2 comments |
In October 2007, my brother Mark called while I was travelling in Europe to let me know he suspected that Tanzania was unveiling yet another gem deposit. "I think we're on top of something big again. An important spessartite discovery seems to have taken place in the northern part of the country".
| Wednesday 6 February 2008 | no comment |
Tanzania continues to pour forth riches. This was the beginning of a news item in the Jewelers' Circular-Keystone in July 1970. The article goes on to say that in addition to tanzanite and chrome-tourmaline (which were then new materials for jewelers), Tanzania had produced a new type of garnet "gleaming red at night and green in daylight".
| Wednesday 6 February 2008 | no comment |
Those who have read Out of Africa or An Ice Cream War, or remember Bogart in The African Queen, will know that "The Great War" was also fought in Africa. But they are unlikely to have heard of the Battle of Merkerstein, a minor skirmish in the northern part of Tanzania, which was then part of German East Africa (Deutsch-Ostafrika).
| Wednesday 6 February 2008 | no comment |
Even geologists rarely appreciate the great age of East Africa's Rift Valley System. Rifts are formed and are later completely filled-in by erosion as their shoulders collapse and wash down into the valley below.
| Wednesday 6 February 2008 | 1 comment |
The first gemstone deposit to be found in East Africa was the ruby deposit at Longido, Tanzania. Other ruby deposits were discovered in Tanzania subsequently, most of them of the anyolite type, as at Longido, but production was generally small or of poor quality gems or of rubies which had been fractured in attempting to free them from their host rock. Then in mid-1973, our father received a visit from a Park Ranger from Tsavo West National Park.
| Wednesday 6 February 2008 | no comment |
Few travelers arrive in Tanzania without having heard the magic word "TANZANITE". It's a one-of-a-kind gemstone found in the Massai country of Tanzania, right in sight of Mount Kilimanjaro.
| Thursday 24 January 2008 | no comment |
While organizing their trips, the AFG told us that they intended to participate financially in some type of local development project, perhaps in the field of education, but not necessarily linked to the world of gemstones. After assessing different options, we decided to build an extra classroom on the grounds of the Komolo school.
| Thursday 24 January 2008 | 1 comment |
In mid-2007, a large ICA group (50 people) came to East Africa for a 10 day gem-safari, spending five days in Kenya, followed by another five in Tanzania.
In Tanzania, the first day was spent at Mererani, the world famous tanzanite deposit; an hour from Arusha.
The ICA spent the following day in Arusha town. This enabled members to see and purchase various rough and cut gems.
The next day, the group travelled to our tsavorite mine at Lemshuko where they were shown the whole mining process from the initial extraction to the final stage.
The last day was a more traditional safari as members visited to the Ngorongoro Crater.
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