Just to be clear, I am here referring to stones…!  In particular, blue and green tourmaline which I am sure I have mentioned before, are very popular right now.  When I picked up this last lot  I mentioned as much to my supplier, and he – a very gentle and gracious man – gave me a look that managed to be both sage and conspiratorial and said ‘People want things that are hard to get’.  How true, and not just for stones.  Certainly, sourcing these stones is not merely a matter of waltzing into the supplier’s office and saying, ‘I’ll take 500 carats of the blue and green tourmaline, please.’  No.  First of all I have to buy a largish amount of something else, then I have to ask the supplier if he will very kindly allow me to plunder his bags of mixed colour tourmalines and cherry-pick the ones I want.  Suppliers don’t normally like this sort of thing because there is the danger that you will take the best stuff and leave them with the crud.  So, this means two things;  firstly that my supplier is a very nice man, and secondly that I really cannot guarantee the supply of these colours.  So, at risk of sounding like a used car salesman, if you like it, grab it, because I don’t know when or if I will get some more.  I have 4mm and 6mm round cabochons in a variety of shades; pale aquas and greens through to teals and deep blues.  Lovely.