Here we go again ! With the popularity of the color Green for Spring and into early Summer, there are several green gemstones available for the jewelry wearer. You can find green in faceted gemstones, cabochon cuts, pendants and tumbled stones as well as crystals. The names of most of the green gemstones are familiar to most people - Emerald, Chrome Diopside, Sapphire, Spinel, Tourmaline, Diamond, Amazonite, Moss Agate, Kambaba Jasper - to name a few of the more popular. And there are a few color change stones that also can appear in greens - i.e. Alexandrite. But of course a green Diamond, a good Columbian Emerald or an Alexandrite will cost one a pile of money.
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So what do the miners, vendors and dealers do, use "marketing" techniques that draw the most attention from the public. Certain gemstones over the years are well known to most people, and the associated name makes them very popular and people know what they are looking for when they hear the names. Amethyst and Morganite are two examples. Amethyst, a purple member of the Quartz family, has colors that run from a very light lilac to a strong deep purple. Morganite, a pink member of the Beryl family, can be pink and range to a peach color. So over the years, when a person hears the name Amethyst, they immediately think of the February birthstone and the color purple. Likewise with Morganite, it is not only people that change their name, but gemstones sometimes do also. And so it was that in 1911, on the suggestion of the New York gemologist G. F. Kunz, for whom the purple gemstone Kunzite was named, that the pink variety of Beryl was ennobled to the status of a gemstone in its own right in honor of the banker and mineral collector John Pierpont Morgan and was given the name under which it is known today: Morganite.
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Green Amethyst (Prassolite)
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So with this history and naming in mind, dull named light green Beryl and green Prassolite got a "marketing" boost. Prassolite was marketed by the Jewelry TV stations and many dealers and eBay sellers as "Green Amethyst" and the latest marketing run is the naming by the same groups of the light green Beryl, calling it "Green Morganite". By doing this not only do the two gemstones get more notority, but the price per caret also jumps dramatically. This falls in line with the old known stone called 'Turkish Diaspore' now going under the catchy name of 'Zultanite", and costing the buyer more per caret for the material.
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Green Morganite (green Beryl)
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As with many things, marketing is the answer to an item selling or not selling, so "what is in a name ?" Nothing wrong with naming an item whatever you want if it sells better under the 'marketing' name, but the seller should also be aware and remind the buying public what the official agreeded upon gemological name of the gemstone actually is.
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