Custom Wire Wrapped Tiger Eye Bracelet Sterling Silver Size 7 1/4
Beautiful piece of Tiger Eye from the collection of Melvin H Sorrels that we are honored to have to finish into jewelry.
About Tiger's Eye - History and Introduction
Tiger's eye is a gold-brown, opaque gemstone variety of fibrous quartz. More specifically, it is a variety of macrocrystalline quartz. However, unlike most quartz gemstones, tiger's eye is actually a 'pseudomorph' of quartz. A 'pseudomorph' is what geologists refer to as any mineral that transforms into another mineral. In the case of tiger's eye, it began as crocidolite, but was later transformed into quartz.
The transformation of tiger's eye begins when quartz slowly becomes embedded between the fibers of crocidolite, eventually the quartz completely replaces crocidolite while still retaining the original fibrous shape.
Tiger's eye is famed for its remarkable chatoyancy and its attractive golden brown colors. It is closely related to hawk's eye and pietersite, both of which exhibit similar chatoyancy. Tiger's eye is actually formed from hawk's eye. During the pseudomorph transformation process, materials that contain more iron oxide result in brownish tiger's eye; less oxidation and less iron tends toward the original blue color of crocidolite. Technically, the term pietersite may be used to describe any brecciated tiger's eye or hawk's eye. Brecciated stones are rocks which are composed of materials that have been broken apart, swirled around, and then later reformed and cemented together by quartz or another type of host or matrix material. This results in a more chaotic chatoyancy, rather than the linear chatoyancy of regular hawk's eye and tiger's eye.