The Rise of Rutilated Quartz

I first heard of “rutilated quartz” about 5 or 7 years ago, but today it is being popularized in jewelry across many brands and designers. It is quartz material with threads of gold colored (or black colored) needles that give the quartz an amazingly luxurious and mysterious quality. I recently attended a meeting sponsored by GIA, at which Brian Cook spoke about his years of mineral exploration in Brazil for paraiba tourmaline and bahia golden rutilated quartz. He currently owns a rutilated quartz mine and attested to the rise in value of the material over the last several years, particularly as the Chinese market seeks out the best of it. Perhaps most fascinating about his presentation is his interest in connecting the ultimate jewelry consumer to the original source, where local workers mine the material for livelihood. He and his wife have a business they call “Nature’s Geometry”.