Tanzania: The East African gem giant!


After Kenya, we moved to Tanzania by road as Arusha the Tanzanian gem business capital is not far from Nairobi. If for Kenya we had at the origin no local contacts at all, for Tanzania I had a contact from a friend in Bangkok. Everything was Ok but he never replied me for the first 3 months about the cost for his help. One week before to arrive in Tanzania he asked me $25.000 for the trip... Arg! that was more than all we had spend for all the previous destinations we visited. Of course I refused his offer and it was our last discussion. Again I turned myself to ICA and I got the help of Eric Saul, ICA Ambassador to Tanzania that invited me to contact him in Arusha. Thanks to Eric and Marc Saul the trip to Tanzania was excellent. They provided us a good car and introduced us a to young broker that was interested to guide us. As he was familiar with most of the mining areas we were willing to visit we did not missed the chance and the trip truned to be great!

Tanzania compared to Kenya has an older mining tradition. At the end of the XIX century the german colonial power was already mining in the country. So the industry is there more developped. But it is at the end of the XX century that Tanzania emmerged as an important gem ming area. It was in Tanzania that several interesting East African gemstones were discovered in at the end of the 1960's . Their names now famous were promoted by Tiffany and Scottish geologist Campbell Bridges. The first one, Tanzanite, was named after the country were it is mined from: Tanzania and the second one: Tsavorite was named after Tsavo National park in south east Kenya.

Our purpose on this trip was still focussed on ruby and sapphire for which Tanzania is famous now with mining areas like Umba, Songea, Morogoro, Longuido, Lossogonoi and Tunduru but we were also interested in Tsavorite and Tanzanite. Finally I was and I'm still interested by any spinel mining area as if Jean Baptiste loves green, I have a particlular attraction besides sapphires for rubies and red spinels.

This expedition has taken us from the Tanzanian border with Kenya in the north to its southern border with Mozambique as the gem mining areas are scattered all over the country. But we had a good car, a good driver and the country is just beautiful! Landscapes, wild animals, gems, all the wonders for which Tanzania is famous were present... And we had the chance to meet also exceptional people including the famous Swiss buyer Werner Spaltenstein alias "Malapa" which for the last 20 years is travelling all the east African and Malagasy gem mining areas. We were lucky to meet him 3 times and I've to say that I was fascinated by his discussion and the history of the gem mining areas we had just visited.

I would like to invite you to follow us one this trip to Tanzania gem wealth: Great trip!

(You can read here our fieldtrip report) and you may also be interested to get the December 2005 issue of the "Revue de gemmologie AFG" as they have print an article about Tsavorite I've written after this trip to Tsavorite mining areas in Kenya and Tanzania.

All the best,

Visit to Merelani "Tanzaniteone" Tanzanite mine. (Soon)
Visit to Lemshuko Tsavorite mine. (Soon)
Visit to Lossogonoi ruby mine. (Soon)
Visit to Longuido Mines. (Soon)
A trip to Umba River valley. (Soon)
Visiting Morogoro's Matombo area. (Soon)
Visiting Mahenge mountain mining area. (Soon)
Visiting Lukande ruby mining area. (Soon)
Visiting Songea sapphire mining area. (Soon)
Gems and mines from Tunduru area. (Soon)

I would like on this page to take the time to thanks all the friends and companies that helped us to make this fieldtrip in Kenya a success: My assistant and friend Jean Baptiste Senoble, AIGS Gemological Laboratory, Bangkok, Thailand and Gubelin Gem Laboratory, Luzern, Switzerland and of course the ICA (International Colored Stones Association) and particlularly Eric and Mark Saul from Swala Gems for the support provided. I want also to thanks M Werner Spaltenstein for his time and enjoyable discussions!

All the best,

Vincent Pardieu



( Left to right: Jean Baptiste Senoble and Vincent Pardieu at Ipanko spinel mining area near Mahenge
Photo: Abdul, August 2005)

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Important Note: Vincent Pardieu is an employee of Gübelin Gem Lab Ltd (Gübelin), a gemmological laboratory based in Lucerne, Switzerland. Any views expressed on this website - and in particular any views expressed by Vincent Pardieu - are the authors' opinions and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Gübelin. Gübelin takes no responsibility and assumes no liability for any content on this website nor is Gübelin liable for any mistakes or omissions you may encounter. Gübelin is in particular not screening, editing or monitoring the content on this website and has no possibility to remove, screen or edit any content.