GREEN GEMS - Going Green for Spring !

In 2010, going green means more than responsibly reducing your carbon footprint. There's a green color revolution in fashion and accessories - and, of course, that means jewelry, too. For spring and summer, green sundresses, tees, and sandals are must-haves for every stylish wardrobe and, at the same time, some treat-yourself green gemstone jewelry to complement.

What's that, you say? You're thinking perhaps you shouldn't wear green - skin tone too yellowy? Well, think again. According to the "Fashion Color Report for Spring and Summer" from the Pantone Institute, there's a green for everyone. For some, it's the blue-green of turquoise while, for others, it's more what Pantone calls "the neutral-green of dried herb." Leatrice Eiseman, Pantone's executive director, says, "Turquoise is a vibrant bright green that we associate with tropical ocean-filled vacations," while dried herb is a practical green, "the ultimate green neutral for people typically hesitant to invest in the color." Fashion designer Carmen Marc Valvo's version of dried herb is, in fact, his signature shade for the warm-weather seasons, juxtaposed with - how exciting - metallic gold!

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And then of course don't forget the various colored green gemstones - Moldavite, Peridot, Tsavorite Garnet, Tourmaline, Chrysoprase, Emerald, Green Fluorite, Malachite, Sansereas, Vertelite, Jade to name the more known ones, and of course don't forget Green Diamonds.

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And back to speaking of gold…since early last year, international trend forecasting expert Ellen Sideri has been anticipating the exciting renaissance of gold jewelry set with green gemstones. "Everything from light to dark greens," said the founder and president of ESP Trendlab in New York City. In early '09, Sideri noted, "They're starting to punctuate the market and, in 2010, they'll be very strong." Well, Sideri was spot-on, emphasizing that wearing green gemstone jewelry this year "is a way to wear luxury and not deprive yourself." Because, she said "even though some great greens can, admittedly, be rather pricey, other fabulous ones are really affordable. And, today, personal style is all about mixing quality product at the high, low, and middle. Look at Michelle Obama. The First Lady is a perfect example of how best to mix luxury and mass together and make it work beautifully. I especially like layering and stacking jewelry pieces," So, in 2010, she recommends, "Mix various shades of green gems together."

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Lackland Officer's Spouses Club - Joint Service Luncheon !

On Thursday, March 25th, 2010, the Lackland Officer's Spouses Club is hosting the San Antonio Area Joint Services Luncheon at the Gateway Club on Lackland AFB. Jewelry by CnC was invited to participate in the vendors fair and the following are a sampling of some new designs that will be available for the first time.

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Rainbow Agate & Picture Jasper----- Wild Horse Magnesite & Ivoryite

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Chaminite Jasper & Glass Pearls----- Malachit & Crystals

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For those spouses from the various Bases and Posts in the San Antonio area, we hope you stop bye and say hello !

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BLACK ONYX - a manmade variety of Chalcedony (Agate) !

Every now and then, a real surprise comes along and makes one step back and wonder about many other things. One such rendering took place this past weekend at the Southwest Gems and Mineral Society Show. Was told by a knowledgable lapidarist when looking at a display I had, than there isn't such a thing as "Black Onyx" which was included in several of the necklace sets I had on display. So started checking around, and the Earth Science Department from Trinity University was present with a booth, so chatted with them for a bit, and yep, no such thing as natural "Black Onyx". To make things easier to understand, here are some definitions of "Black Onyx" off of several different sites on the Internet.

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"Black onyx" is neither truly onyx nor truly black, but it is actually dyed chalcedony. According to some experts, it is produced by boiling slabs of gray chalcedony in a sugar solution. The sugar permeates the stone's "pores" between the submicrocrystallites and darkens the appearance of the stone. This dye/treatment is stable and requires no special care.

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Black Onyx - unknown in nature, it is produced by warming chalcedony in a sugar solution for several days or weeks. The stone in then placed in warm sulphuric acid. The acid reacts with the sugar, precipitating the free carbon. The black color is permanent.

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Black Onyx - Mohs Hardness: 6.5-7 - Treatment: Dyed for color uniformity - Color: clear to browns (See also Chalcedony as no such thing as Black Onyx). Onyx and Sardonyx are similar to agate, but Onyx has straight rather than curved bands. These bands may be in shades of browns, reds, tans, yellow, greens and rarely blues and will always have white. Since ancient Egyptian times, onyx has been stained to improve or change its color to an all black gemstone. All totally black onyx has been produced by soaking black agate (chalcedony)or other Onyx, especially clear, in a sugar solution, then heating it in sulfuric acid to carbonize the sugar particles. Found worldwide. Onyx is formed by the deposition of silica in gas cavities in lava, which results in the distinctive bands.

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So from now on the proper term to use with the 'little or big black stones' used in jewelry, should be either black Agate or black Chalcedony with the added comment "enhnaced by chemical treatments and is called black Onyx". One learns something new every day if you listen good.

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JOINT SERVICE LUNCHEON - Lackland AFB, San Antonio, Texas

On March 25th, 2010, the Lackland Officer's Spouses Club is holding the Annual Joint Service Luncheon at the Gatway Club on Lackland AFB. This luncheon rotates between the various military bases in San Antonio from year to year. As in the past, various vendors have again been asked to come and present their items for sale during the luncheon.

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For this year, Gayle has come up with several new designs and new materials for use in her jewelry sets. The following and others will all be available on the 25th.

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Sticking with natural Gemstones, these first four sets contain Turquoise, Coral, Charolite, Onyx, Tiger Iron and Glass Pearls with Silver or Copper clasps and earring holders.

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Then totally varying away from Gemstones, these next four sets are made up of Dichroic, Fused or Pressed Glass Pendants with seed beads or fabric necklaces.

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Look for any of these that may be remaining following the show on the Web-site. Don't forget to check "JewelrybyCnC" on Twitter for announcements and updates concerning shows and displays.

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Remember to click on the picture for an enlarged view.

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FACETED GEMSTONES - One choice for a list of the Rarest !

Not without some controversy and easily finding several different listing on various sites on the internet, lets look at 10 Faceted Gemstones that can stir up debate about them being the 10 rarest. But whatever list one uses, they all have one thing in common - they are all very very expensive.

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PAINITE has been described as the rarest gem mineral. As of early 2005 there were eighteen known specimens, all numbered and accounted for. Specimen No. 5 has been faceted into an oval and weighs 2.54 carats. Painite is pink to red to brown in color, very strongly pleochroic (showing different hues from different angles) and it fluoresces a lovely green under short wave UV. It comes from Mogok and Kachin State in Myanmar.

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SERENDIBITE, not to be confused with serandite, comes from Sri Lanka. It boasts an unusually complex formula consisting of calcium, magnesium, aluminum, silicon, boron and oxygen. So far there exist three faceted specimens. The name comes from the old Arabic term for Sri Lanka, Serendib, as referenced in The Sixth Voyage of Sinbad.

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.POUDRETTEITE, another of the purple gemstones from Magok, Myanmar, was discovered in 2000. By December 2004 nine gem-quality pieces had been found , including a pale pink. At a Mohs hardness of 5, Poudretteite is the softest stone on this list — too scratchable for a ring but suitable for earrings, a pin or a pendant if care is exercised. Previously this substance had been known as a rare mineral of tiny colorless crystals, discovered in 1987 and named after the Poudrette family that operated the source quarry at Mont Saint-Hilaire, Quebec.

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GRANDIDIERITE is a bluish green mineral found primarily in Madagascar. The first and so far only clean faceted specimen, from Sri Lanka, was originally mistaken for a serendibite. Grandidierite is trichroic, transmitting blue, green and white light. The mineral is named after French explorer and natural historian Alfred Grandidier, who among other things unearthed bones from the extinct half-ton elephant bird in Ambolisatra, Madagascar.

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JEREMEJEVITE is a colorless, sky blue or pale yellow stone, the highest quality of which comes from Namibia. In nature it occurs in small obelisk-shaped crystals and has in the past been mistaken for aquamarine. It was named after Russian mineralogist Pavel Jeremejev who discovered the mineral in 1883.

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MAJORITE forms under the extreme pressure that occurs 250 miles (400 km) or more beneath the earth’s surface or from the shock of a meteorite impact. It’s a dark purple form of Garnet that was discovered in 1970 in the Coorara meteorite near Eucla, Western Australia. The species is named after Alan Major who researched high-pressure Garnet formation. Has similar formation to the apple green Moldavite collected from around a metor strike in the Czech Republic.

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TAAFFEITE is a mauve to purple to red stone named after Bohemian-Irish gemologist Edward Taaffe who discovered the first one from a box of Sri Lankan spinels in 1945. The stone displayed a double refraction which was uncharacteristic of spinel. If you could round up all the faceted taaffeites currently in existence they would fill about half a cup. Of the rarest red variety there are fewer than ten specimens.

.MUSGRAVITE is a species chemically and optically similar to Taffeite, but is even rarer. Facetable musgravite was first reported in 1993 and as of 2007 there were eight such specimens. The mineral was discovered in 1967 at the Musgrave Range in South Australia, but has since then turned up in Greenland, Madagascar and even Antarctica. It’s not unlikely that some stones thought to be taaffeites by their owners are actually musgravites. Micro-Raman spectroscopy, which uses a green laser, can quite handily distinguish the two.

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BENITOITE is found only in San Benito County, California. The stone is a strong blue with a dispersion similar to that of diamond, and fluoresces an intense blue-white under UV light. The largest faceted Benitoite weighs 15.42 carats, but stones over one carat are rare. In 1974 someone stole a flawless 6.52-carat pear-shaped specimen from the Zurich airport and it’s still missing. In 1985, Benitoite was designated the state gemstone of California.

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PHOSPHYLLITE is a rare mineral composed of hydrated zinc phosphate. Its name derives from its chemical composition (phosphate) and the Greek word for "leaf", phyllon, a reference to its cleavage. It is highly prized by collectors for its rarity and for its delicate bluish green colour. Phosphophyllite is rarely cut because it is fragile and brittle, and large crystals are too valuable to be broken up. The finest Phosphophyllite crystals come from Potosi, Bolivia, but it is no longer mined there. Other sources include New Hampshire, USA, and Hagendorf, Bavaria, Germany. It is often found in association with the minerals Chalcopyrite and Tripholite.

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The above listing appears to be based on the hardest to find, finding sizes to facet and somewhat on pricing. There are other listings of the 10 rarest gemstones based solely on price, hardest to find, exotic and lack of availability. The following list is based on a 2008 cost per caret. Please note several are repeated from the above list.

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Jadeite $3+ million/caret

Red Diamond $2-2.5 million/caret
Serendebite $1.8-2 million/caret
Blue Garnet $1.5 million/caret
Grandidierite $100,000/caret
Painite $50-60,000/caret
Musgravite $35,000/caret
Red Beryl $10,000/caret
Black Opal $2,500/caret
Jeremejevite $2,000/caret
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some even add Tanzanite to this list at $1,800-2,200/caret.
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And then we must not forget the most popular gemstone: which by it's pricing would quickly make one think it is rare:
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DIAMONDS, in general, Diamonds are not at all rare, but controlled pricing keeps the price high. The De Beers Company would prefer you didn’t know, but annual world production of gem-quality Diamond exceeds sixty million carats. This equals twelve metric tons and would fill about 145 bushel baskets. Consider this the next time you pony up a few thousand dollars for an engagement ring stone. However, colored Diamonds, called fancies, can be genuinely scarce. About one carat out of every 10,000 sold is a fancy. These shades include yellow, green, blue, orange, brown (“champagne”), purple, gray, black (called carbonado, recently shown to be meteoric), milky white, pink and red. Red is by far the rarest.

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Thanks to several gemology friends for information and pictures of the rare gemstones, although still missing a couple pictures.
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LAPIDARY and GEMOLOGY !

For those of you that can make it to the San Antonio area the weekend of March 20th-21st, come out and see some of the following items at the 49th Annual Fiesta of Gems, put on by the Southwest Gem and Mineral Society. The show will be at the Live Oak Civic Center on Pat Booker Rd in Live Oak, located near the intersection of I-35 and Loop 1604, on the northeast corner of San Antonio. Hours are 10-6 on Sat and 10-4 on Sun. All proceeds from the show support Earth Science Scholarships. For addition information vist the SWGMS web-site at http://swgemandmineral.org/ .
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Here is a sampling of what you might see at the show. Come and visit the show to find out what each item is or is called.

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In addition there will be books, equipment, lapidary supplies, finished displays and some jewelry.

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HINT: if you click on a picture, it will bring up a larger view and the name of the item will be in the URL line of your browser. In some browsers, if you put the cursor over the enlarged picture, the name will appear.

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New Items for Upcoming Show !

These stones have recently been acquired and will be incorporated in some new jewelry designs for the upcoming display at the SWGMS 49th Annual Fiesta of Gems coming up on the 20th and 21st of March at the Live Oak Civic Center and the Lackland AFB LOSC Joint Service Luncheon on the 25th of March.

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Maw Sit Sit and Druzy Petrified Wood

an Amethyst Druzy

A pair of Black Agate Druzies

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