Tiger Eye and Mineral Specimens

Tiger’s Eye is the Planetary stone for Gemini (May 21-Jun. 20) and the accepted gem for the ninth wedding anniversary.

Tiger’s eye (tigers eye, tiger eye, tiger iron) is a member of the quartz group of chalcedonies. It is one of the chatoyant gemstones. Chatoyancy exhibits a changeable silky luster as light is reflected within the thin parallel fibrous bands. This effect is due to the fibrous structure of the material.

Tiger iron is composed of tiger’s eye, red jasper and black hematite. The rippled wavy bands of color often resemble a scenic view. Marra Mamba is a form of tiger iron found in one area of Australia near Mount Brockman. It is a very rare type of tiger iron that contains shades of red, green, yellow, and blue. This area has been mined out for many years so very little of the “true” marra mamba is available today.

The exceptional looking piece of marra mamba tiger’s iron rough from Australia (seen in third image) looks like the evening sun setting behind a mountain range.  It has a greenish cast with shades of brown, golden yellow, red and blue veining.  Because the minerals in this stone are of varying hardness, it is difficult to polish without under cutting.

Tiger’s eye is mined in Western Australia, South Africa, USA, Canada, India, Namibia, and Burma.

Folklore, Legend, and Healing Properties:
Many legends about quartz say that wearing tiger’s eye (which is a form of quartz) is beneficial for health and spiritual well being. Legend also says it is a psychic protector, great for business, and an aid to achieving clarity.

Brown Tiger’s Eye
Tiger’s Eye is a brown quartz silicon dioxide with lustrous yellow and brown parallel fibres. The yellow-gold colours are due to iron oxides. Tiger’s Eye has the property of chatoyancy, which means that it glitters with a small ray of light on the surface, much like the eyes of a cat. There largest deposits of tiger’s eye are in South Africa, Australia, Burma, India and the United States.

This common form of quartz has been popular in jewellery making for years. It comes in various shades of light or dark brown and has fibrous inclusions that add luminosity to the stone. If the stone is cut properly, it resembles a femaleís cat’s eye.
Tiger’s Eye has the grounding energy of the earth, but is embellished with glowing warmth, the influence of the yellow/gold highlights of the fibrous inclusions.
This is a stone for people who need more confidence to accomplish their goals. Tiger’s Eye helps us recognize the resources within ourselves and use those resources for the attainment of our dreams. It helps us judge a situation and determine how best to approach it.

Its natural coloration can be blue or gold or a combination of the two. Heat-treatment produces the beautiful red and green shades. Tiger-eye with straight, sharply defined lines is called Cat’s Eye.
This mineral combines the properties of sand and sunlight. It is helpful to individuals seeking clarity. Teaches us to see with the eye of the tiger: clearly and without illusion. The eye of the tiger can see through the illusionary limitations of the physical plane laws.
Tiger Eye connects you to the rich browns of the earth, and blends that energy with the gold of the Divine Light. It is a Stone of great power, enabling all who draw near its aura to tap their own personal power and then use it wisely.
Use at naval centre to ground the elevated consciousness of the crown (gold) into physical reality (brown).
Tiger Eye causes a focusing of the mind and increases the power of the mind. It will greatly increase the psychic ability and power of the one who wears it.
Red Tiger’s Eye

ENERGY: Projective
PLANET:  Sun
ELEMENT: Fire
CHAKRAS:
 Navel, Solar Plexus
 
AROMATHERAPY:
 Lemon, Lime
 
ASSOCIATED METAL:
 Gold
 
ASTROLOGICAL SIGN:
 Capricorn
 
VIBRATES TO NUMBER: 4
POWERS

Money, Protection, Courage, Energy, Luck, and Divination
MAGICAL/RITUAL LORE

Roman soldiers wore tiger’s-eye engraved with symbols for protection during battle.
MAGICAL USES

Tiger’s-eye is a fine stone for promoting wealth and money. A simple money spell involves empowering several tiger’s-eyes with your need for money. Use them to surround a green candle. Light the candle and visualize.
They are also carried for protection against all forms of danger. A tiger’s-eye cabochon set in gold is a fine protective ring or pendant.
Ruled by the Sun and possessing a golden flash of light, tiger’s-eye is worn to strengthen convictions and create courage and confidence.
This is a warm stone, and it promotes energy flow thought the body when worn. It is also beneficial for the weak or sick.
Sit outside on a sunny day. Hold a tiger’s-eye in your hands and gaze at the flashes of light. Still your conscious mind and look into the future. Or, use the stone as a tool to delve into past lives.

Blue Tiger’s Eye

Stone’s names are Tiger eye, also spelled tiger’s-eye and tigereye. Tiger eye is also called crocidolite cat’s-eye or African cat’s-eye. Tiger eye color has a rich yellow and golden brown stripes, with a fine golden lustre when polished.

Tiger eye is quartz that contains oriented fibres of crocidolite that have been replaced by silica. Tiger eye is displaying chatoyancy (a vertical luminescent band like that of a cat’s eye) . Tiger eye typically has lustrous alternating yellow or brown bands.

The name’s origin: Tiger eye with its bands resembles an eye of tiger, so it is received its name due to this similarity.

Wedding anniversary: Tiger Eye is the anniversary gemstone for the 9th year of marriage.

Varieties: Hawk’s-eye is similar to tiger eye, except that the crocidolite was replaced by quartz before altering to iron oxide. It therefore retains the gray-blue or green of the asbestos.

Care and treatment: As with all gems, protect tiger eye from scratches and sharp blows. Also avoid large temperature changes.

From the stone history: Roman soldiers wore tiger’s-eye for protection in battle. Tiger Eye was thought to be all seeing due to its appearance.

Shopping guide: Tiger Eye is widely used in pendant and beads where it’s lovely tiger-like peculiarity displays out best.

Healing ability: Tiger eye relieves high blood pressure. Tiger eye wear is very helpful in the presence of following diseases: bronchial asthmakidney, rheumatic heart disease, otitis and psoriasis.

Mystical power: Tiger Eye is used for focusing the mind. It is said that Tiger Eye offers protection during travel, strengthens convictions and confidence. This very warm stone is beneficial for the weak and sick.

Deposits: The most important mine for Tiger Eye is in South Africa. The best stones come from Griqualand West.

White and decent black citizens of Southern Rhodesia fought for longer than 10 years to maintain law and order and economic values in that blessed land.

After brutal interference by criminals of the Zanu Party, Robert Mugabe was acknowledged as the President of Zimbabwe.

He proceeded immediately to destroy the economy and within few short years he fully succeeded. Presently, there is nothing in Zimbabwe: no food, no agriculture, no manufacturing, no commerce, no jobs and no Whites.

Black citizens of Zimbabwe are dying in draws due to malnutrition and sicknesses.

When they stood down, the anti Mugabe fighters took along some of the unused bullets and tried to find peaceful values for them.

Here is the best example, a beer bottle opener.

Any takers?

Please make an offer.  Click here.

Rhodesian Gold (plated) bullet. Ex machine gun armory.13 cm. long, 2 cm diameter.Best memorabilia and perfectly suited to open beer bottle tops.Price??? Please make offers

#si025- $ make an offer  

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Roman soldiers were holding a piece of Tiger’s Eye as a good luck omen.

I was amused and surprised to read on several websites that the Romans, longer than 2,000 years ago considered Tiger’s Eye to bring good luck and took to wearing some Tiger’s Eye as amulets.

To the best of my knowledge, Tiger’s Eye occurs only on the Karoo Desert, on the western part of the Cape Province of South Africa.

Lately, some kind of similar occurrences have been detected in Australia, but the recovered stones show more than 85% iron formation heavily embedded between the asbestos fibers that create the Tiger’s Eye effect.

We know for sure that no Roman soldier ever reached Australia on the quest to locate Tiger’s Eye.

We also know that although Roman Armies walked the African continent, it was ONLY on the Northernmost part of  it, namely Egypt.

One must walk some 4-5,000 miles from the lower Egypt to the South African borders and then some more to reach the emptiness of the Karoo Desert.

I do not believe that any Roman soldiers ventured so far from the base.

But even if they did or some traders full of temerity walked so far South in search of the Tiger’s Eye, the name does not fit.

There are no tigers in Africa and there were no tigers nowhere else in the great Roman Empire.

Tigers resided at the time mainly in India and then North, towards Siberia.

And if the tiger was unknown to the Roman soldiers, why on the Earth would they go and name a non existent stone after a non existent animal?

Then, the hardness: Tiger’s eye has an 8.5 hardness on the Richter scale.

Only the Corundum and the Diamond would cut, shape and polish Tiger’s Eye.

Neither the Roman Army nor their Emperors were known to have many of above stones and definitely they did not have the knowledge to use them for industrial purposes or the making of jewelry.

And, if against all of above odds, Tiger’s Eye stones were supposed to bring luck, it is obvious that it did not work as such, because the whole mighty Roman Army and the mighty Roman Empire just disappeared…

Or, alternatively, could it be that they disappeared exactly because they did not have any Tiger’s Eye amulets to bring them good luck?

But if did not work for the Romans, it could well be working for you and me, today, in the 21st Century.

Buy a few stones, touch them for luck, look at the chatoyancy it produces and enjoy what you see.

And then after a while, measure your luck and report to us.

‘talk to ya soon’.

In South Africa one is not allowed to hold nor transport rough gold.

It was a professional anecdote circulating in South Africa during the 60-80th:

It was saying that should one kill a person in the middle of the town square with many witnesses around, a good lawyer could debate and get a ‘non guilty’ verdict.

But when one was caught with one ounce or even less of rough gold or  diamonds, one would go to jail.

By mid 70th’s my corporation, Gemcraft in Johannesburg was commissioned by the mighty Anglo American Corporation to slice and polish several slabs of gold bearing rock, as originally mined in the deep gold mines of Witwatersrand (Johannesburg area).

A van arrived at our factory with two policemen and two security guards from the mining division. They brought to us several slabs of gold bearing ore.

We had to weigh and measure each one of them and sign a very detailed receipt.

We did the job and, in consideration for our activity, we were allowed to keep two slabs of gold bearing ore.

We polished one and left the other “as it was”.

I am not aware of any similar such specimens being available elsewhere.

Right now, being based in South Western Florida and after many years of enjoying seeing them on my desk, I have decided to sell.

I have placed a value of $2,000 each or both, together, for $3.500.-

The above prices are not entirely related to the present high value of gold.

There is gold in them slabs but I am sure that the buyer will not consider crushing them and then try to extract the gold therein.

Any comments are most welcome.

Commemorative plaque with a REPLICA of a Kruger Rand gold coin. Size 14 x 14 cmWeight 850 gramsPrice: Please somebody advise if other such plaques are known to exists and if so, a price comparison.

#si012- $ make an offer  

Click to enlarge

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  Polished slab of gold ore

  Measures 26 x 20 cm

  Weight 2.125 Kg

#rs008- $2000

Click to  enlarge

  Polished slab of gold ore

  Measures 26 x 20 cm

  Weight 2.125 Kg

#rs010- $2000

Click to  enlarge