Tiger's Eye Voyager Sphere.

Turn it in your palm and a single band of gold light slides across the surface, following the movement like an open eye. Tiger's eye was carried by sailors, soldiers and traders as a talisman for the road, and this sphere is made to be held before a hard conversation or a long trip.

It is cut and polished into a 45-millimeter sphere, its color running from deep amber to a warm root-brown, striped where the original blue crocidolite fibers were replaced, over geologic time, by silica. That fibrous structure gives the stone its chatoyance, the moving band of light it is named for. The rough was mined in the Northern Cape of South Africa, home to the richest tiger's eye deposits found anywhere. A sphere asks more of the cutter than a simple tumble: every angle must be ground evenly to keep the band centered and unbroken.

The tradition is often traced to Rome, where the stone was said to be set into rings worn into battle. Custom credits it with steadying the nerve and lending a kind of borrowed confidence to whoever keeps it close.

Details

• Polished tiger's eye sphere, 45 millimeters
• Rough from the Northern Cape, South Africa
• Deep amber to root-brown, with a gold chatoyant band

How to use

Set it on a stand where the light can reach it, and turn it now and then to watch the band travel.

A handsome, weighty thing to hold before walking into a room you would rather not enter alone.