Tiger's eye has one trick, and it does it better than any other stone here. A band of light lies across the surface and slides as the piece turns — the effect comes from parallel fibers inside the stone, all pointing the same way. Cut along the fibers and you get the line. Cut across them and you get a plain brown bead.
Reading the color
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Golden tiger's eye is the classic, and the one where the band shows strongest.
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Blue tiger's eye runs cooler and greyer, with a softer line.
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Red tiger's eye is heat-treated to deepen the brown, and reads almost copper.
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Green and multicolor pieces show more than one band across a single bead.
Why the disc cuts matter
Several pieces here are cut as flat discs or round-discs rather than spheres. It is not only a shape choice. A flat face turns the fiber line into a full width of light across the bead, where a sphere reduces it to a point. If the band is what you want to see, the disc is the cut.
The same stone appears on the bone talismans in this collection, where it is set beside carved yak bone rather than strung on its own. The pieces grouped for courage are where most of it is used.
Wearing it
Tiger's eye is quartz-based and takes daily wear without trouble. The polish holds for years.
Choose by the band. If you cannot decide from a photograph, the disc cuts show the effect from more angles than the rounds do.
