Red Tigers Eye

A beautiful red variant of the common gold Tigers Eye. It is usually used for jewellery or polished or carved into decorative objects.

It is also known as “Dragon’s Eye” or “Ox Eye”. Like regular tiger’s eye, red tiger’s eye is a form of chalcedony, which is a mineral in the quartz family.

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Information about Red Tigers Eye

This is a chatoyant gemstone – a type of metamorphic rock characterised by a deep red colour – although Tigers Eye also occurs in a golden colour, and even a blue colour.

The red colouration is caused by golden Tigers Eye being heated – whether this occurs naturally underground in volcanic heat, or is part of a heat treatment done by man to create a ‘rarer’ gemstone.

Tigers Eye is actually formed from a mineral called Crocidolite, which pseudomorphs into Quartz over time. As the Crocidolite is replaced, traces of Iron remain – the less Iron remains, the bluer the stone. The more iron, the closer to the the common golden colour.

Crocidolite is actually a form of Asbestos, but don’t worry – Tigers Eye is a pseudomorph and is perfectly safe to handle – the asbestos has been replaced with Quartz. Anyone wishing to work with the stone in a lapidary workshop should obviously take all the proper precautions.

The contrasting bands of colour and silky lustre make a beautiful and comforting pattern which reminds me of the surface of Mars, or a volcanic lake. It is mainly used for jewellery making and ornamentation, and is usually cut into cabochons or pendants.