Story: Tiger's Eye; 6-8-2021;
• Tiger iron is a popular ornamental material used in a variety of applications, from beads to knife hilts.
Precious stones are stones remarkable for their colour, brilliancy, or rarity. Such stones have at all times been held in high esteem everywhere, particularly in the East where there use and adornment have served ceremonial, ritualistic and stylistic purposes.
Sacred Scripture illustrates that very early on the Eastern civilizations appropriated them for diverse ornamental uses: rings, bracelets, collars and necklaces.
The crowns of kings, their garments and those of their officers and of the priests were all set with precious stones, often as engraved gems, a major art form throughout the ancient Near East.
Tiger iron is an altered rock composed chiefly of tiger's eye, red jasper and black hematite. Tiger's eye (tigers eye, tiger eye, tiger iron) is a member of the quartz group of chalcedonies.
It is one of the chatoyant or cat's eye effect gemstone. 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 mined primarily in South Africa and Western Australia. While other common sources of tiger's eye also include Burma, India, Namibia, South Africa, the United States, Brazil, Canada, China, Korea etc.
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, 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.