Tiffany stone kite shape cabochon backed black jade purple Utah designer gemstone Unique lapidary 10 mm x 21 mm store x 6 mm. 20.5 carats.

Bertrandite is more commonly called Tiffany Stone. It is an opalite (common opal), and often has a soft rind. Fine quality tiffany stone has purple coloration and can even be a pure dark, translucent purple color.

Tiffany Stone comes from one locality in Utah. The mine is no longer open for collecting and all of this beautiful material is now ground up for beryllium ore. The beryllium content in tiffany stone is locked up in a silicated compound, much like the beryl minerals aquamarine and emerald. Because of the compounded nature of the beryllium in these minerals, it is like any other agate or opalite and not hazardous to cut and polish . However, the dust from store pure industrial beryllium, metallic alloys of beryllim or ceramic beryllium is toxic and very dangerous to breathe.
The rareness of Tiffany Stone comes from the fact that to date, the only location it has been found is at the Brush Wellman beryllium mine in the Topaz-Spor Mountains of Juab County's Sevier Desert, in western Utah. Beryllium (Be) is a light-weight, high-strength yet brittle alkaline earth metal which is used in structural materials for aircraft, missiles, communication satellites and space vehicles. Adding to the scarcity is the fact that the extraction process for beryllium involved crushing large quantities of material which yield only 1 to 2 percent of the concentrated ore. This remote mine is now closed to the public.

This listing is for a free form Tiffany stone cabochon. The dimensions of the stone are 10 mm x 21 mm x 6 mm deep. The weight of this gemstone is 20.5 carats. The stone is finished on the back with black jade.