Tourmaline has been mined in Maine's western mountains since it was first found in the early 1800's.  One of the largest gem quality deposits of tourmaline in the world was discovered in Newry, Maine in the early 1970's.  At this time the government chose tourmaline as Maine's state stone.  

Tourmaline has the widest range of color of any gemstone on the market.  Ranging from clear to black and every shade in between there are thousands of colors to choose from.   These diverse colors are the result of different minerals around the crystals during formation, as well as tourmaline's complex chemical composition.  Tourmaline can also have more than one color in a single gemstone, "watermelon" tourmaline (pink and green in color) is the most well known of the bi-colors.

Tourmaline is a hard stone (7.5 on a scale of 1-10), and considered one of the "love stones" along with diamonds and rubies. Tourmaline also is October's birthstone, the traditional choice.