I was recently asked at a show how I can call off the names of the various pendants and cabachons I am selling without having to look them up in a book or some kind of a listing. Well I would have to say that I get some of the common ones right most of the time, but probably some of the rarer ones only about 70-75% of the time. My biggest problem is spelling the name correctly for the person after I identify the pendant or cabachon. Then of course there is the all time major consideration that the name I know the stone bye may not be the same name that the person I got the slab from to make the pendant or cabachon, called the rough rock. And of course as I travel around to different areas for shows, the stones may have locally used names that differ from what I am calling them.
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What I like to do for several days before a show is lay all the pendants and cabachons out in a pile, like in the picture, and start pulling them out and naming them as I remove them from the group. Those I take a bit to long to ID or miss completely, go back in the pile to be selected again. All of the stones, pendant or cabachon, have an ID tag on the reverse side so that I can confirm if correct or wrong based on what I know the stone as. If someone totally disagrees on a name or doesn't agree that the stone can have another name, I do have a computer program that I carry with me that lists all the names, species ID, group ID, misnomers, local names and false names for several thousand gems and gemstones used in Jewelry.
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