Color : Various shades of blue to lavender.
Hardness : 6½ - 7

Tanzanite’s blue-lavender color is rather unique and a wonderful addition to the gemstone family. It is found in Tanzania in 1967 and has since become a well known and widely distributed gemstone. Its only one direction of cleavage is somewhat of a problem because it is the gem-cutter who would usually select the direction to maximize the color. However, with tanzanite’s strong color that is hardly an issue.