25mm Tigereye from South African, beautiful heart that is cut entirely by hand.

The heart is a very old symbol of love used by everyone around the world. Traditionally, the heart has been chosen in several cultures as the seat of love and feeling. It is not entirely clear why the heart was chosen as a love symbol. Perhaps because the heart is automatically related to the (feeling) life and without the heart (read love) no life is possible. The heartbeat is partly influenced by feelings; so our hearts beat faster when in love. The heart likes to be loved. The heart needs love. It has even been claimed that love extends life expectancy, while loneliness is counterproductive. Everyone knows the phrase, "He died of a broken heart."

Tiger eye is a quartz variety. The color of the stone is tan to brown, streaky and opaque. Locations include Africa, India, Mexico, California and Australia. Tiger's eye is caused by the black-blue asbestos silica-tion process called crocidolite. This creates solid inclusions of hair-like crystals in the quartz. The oxidation of the original crocidolite fibers creates the gold shiny limonite fibers of the stone. Tiger's eye is so named because the stone has a light reflection that is reminiscent of a tiger's eye. This slit-shaped light effect is called chatoyeren or "cat's eye effect". When the stone is cabochon (convex) cut, the beautiful cat's eye effect is best visible. The color of the stone gives it its name: the red type is called Cat's Eye, the blue Falcon's Eye and the yellow Tiger's Eye (golden yellow, golden brown).