In a world where gemstones have frequently been handled by many, the provenance of these amazing stones has been lost. With such a strong connection to the wonderful world of East African, this project to acquire unheated, untreated, natural gemstones from ethical, sustainable and fair paid workers to be set into pre-loved amazing gold jewellery has been two years in the making.
And it has been worth every minute!
Growing up in East Africa we marvelled at the landscapes around us. From the amazing views as you descended into the Rift Valley, to the snow peaked mountains of Mt, Kenya and Mt. Kilimanjaro (a pretty rare sight on the equatorial savannah). In the Rift Valley there were fertile landscapes to grow roses and vegetables, there were salt lakes filled with dancing flamingos. There were also a succession of volcanos dotted up and down the countries - all of which were great as spots of adventure to us kids - but what they all geologically show - is a place of great movement and this can only mean one thing - Gemstones!
East Africa (basically talking Kenya and Tanzania in this) is one of the richest sources of gemstones in the world thanks to the Mozambique Belt (basically in the Proterozoic Era the high grade metamorphic rocks from here were excellent growing bases for the wide array of gemstones we find here). A few have become global names thanks to the likes of Tiffany - Tanzanite, Tsavorite and Spessartite garnets, but a lot remain unstudied, and unavailable to the general market.
So when I started to look to build my jewellery collection, I was really sad to discover that buying East African stones (in or out of rings) was next to impossible - even in Kenya itself.
And so we began the dreaming of finding a way forward - and then an amazing friend in Kenya sent us the instagram details of a new supplier in Kenya. An Aussie with decades of experience in gemstones in Australia who had recently moved to East Africa. Basing themselves at the foot of Mount Kilimanjaro, this awesome team source stones directly from the miners - and ensure they are paid fairly and are offered support in their operations. The local community also benefits from this grass roots organisation who travel up and down Kenya and Tanzania. During their time in the communities the women are taught about stones - how to market them, which ones are valuable, how to look for clean stones etc etc.
Buying rough directly from this small company has ensured that we have bought ethically, environmentally, sustainably and the stones are untreated, unheated and in their original wonderful condition - and just look at the range in the parcel we received. Even more amazingly, some of these stones were from specific towns and locales in the East Africa region - sapphires from Garba Tula, Tsavorite garnets not from the region of Kenya they got their name (Tsavo) but intstead from the Rwangwa district in Tanzania, moonstones from Malawi and zircons from the Tunduru region of Tanzania (although unlike the article states the ones we are setting will be unqiue and unheated).
The first step was complete! Natural rough East African gemstones in all their glory were in our possession. Now, we needed them cut, and boy, oh boy did we know that this needed to be a local Australian company - one who shared our views on unheated, untreated natural stones. Enter Underground Gem Co. a Gold Coast Based family run company by Dani and his amazing team. Each piece was individually assessed and cuts were discussed for each and every stone (based on clarity, shape and depth) to ensure that each was going to be the best it could be.
Ta-da!
Sapphires, garnets (in 6 different colours!), zircons, aquamarines, iolite, tourmalines, spinel and quartz. We marvelled at the colours, the variation and the incredible luck that 2,500,000,000 years ago the plates had formed that were now in the place we had called home for our childhoods. Over 150 amazing gems - whose history we could trace at every step.
Setting these amazing stones is going to take time - finding the perfect vintage setting who could not be loved as it was. We are not here as a company to ethically remove good stones merely to set our own - but rings with CZ, scratched, broken or chipped stones - well they are been on our hunt list. And the first 9 have come full circle. Each of these rings beneath had stones with issues - and we feel such amazing delight at being able to take these damaged pieces and re-breathe life into them.
These first 9 amazing pieces will be dropping to the website tomorrow...
Stay tuned
K x