![]() These and others will be discussed.Ī third point to be eliminated is the rare and unusual colors occasionally encountered in common substances, or the infrequent flawlessness of a gem popularly said to be always flawed. Such examples would be the alexandrite which is a chrysoberyl, a not uncommon material, and the padparadscha, an orange or aurora-red sapphire, a second material which is reasonably bountiful. Occasionally we will find that some variety is rare while its species is not. It is simply that it never appears on the hobbyist's market, hence he is innocently ignorant that it exists at all.Įxample after example could be cited as to what is rare, so we must necessarily limit the scope of this article to those gems whose species is scarce and not consider the uniqueness of the best or the largest specimen of each gem material. It is a fact that this material has brought $15.00 per carat wholesale in New York this year, yet to many hobbyists this would seem preposterous. This is true for without regard to what may be the finest amethyst (to use that gem as an example again) very high-grade amethyst can be costly. Then we are confronted with the fact that the finest or largest extant specimen of even common material is rare, since there is only one of it in the world. This, then, is not so facetious a point as it may at first appear. Today it is much more common, yet it has lost nothing in beauty, but the value of that jewelry is now only a fraction of what it was in her time, vastly inflated prices notwithstanding. This is unwise and we may take the example of the famed amethyst jewelry of Catherine the Great, Empress of Russia, was valued highly in her day for there was no known abundance of it. ![]() The term known is used, for who is to say that in the future some sizable discovery of one or more of these minerals will not be made? All too often such concepts have been either ignored or taken for granted. Therefore, rarity, in this article, is taken to mean the lack of the known abundance of materials suitable for cutting gemstones, particularly faceted ones. ![]() What, precisely does one mean when he denotes something as rare? If so-and-so is rare, then why not some other thing, etc? These are fair questions for, manifestly, it is impossible to talk about or write on any subject with any degree of common understanding unless that subject first be defined. Since language is a complexity of semantics, there justly is a wide variance of opinion as to the meanings of words. However, if it can serve as an impetus for others to cover more fully this highly interesting subject, it will have fulfilled its purpose. As with the stones themselves, there is a glaring scarcity of information concerning them and this article can by no means accomplish more than a few revolutions of a lap on a dopped stone in this regard. Perhaps the most fascinating study in the field of gemology is that of the rarer gems.
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