Jewel Tunnel
Imports
New Arrivals February 22, 2006
Tumbled
amethyst and quartz with Rutile hairs.
5 lbs 10lbs
Tumbled Amethyst $25 $40
Tumbled Quartz with Rutile $15 $20
The amethyst has about 50 pieces per pound and the quartz with rutile about 36 pieces per pound. The quartz with rutile tends to be larger on an average than the amethyst and more variable in size. The samples below are average for the lots. Mother nature does not like part numbers.
The amethyst is from
Bolivia, the same locality that produces the ametrine gems and in fact this material
is made from the material that was not suitable for faceted stones.
The rutile in quartz is
from Bahia and was mined a few years ago when everyone thought that any quartz
with rutile was worth a lot of money. The rutile hairs are not the thick golden
hairs that come from the area around Ibitiara but rather the type that if found
near………. Some of the stones show beautiful brassy colored rutile and others
fine curls of hair like rutile that sparkle in the sun. Other stones show
little rutile and are mostly just clear quartz.
At the Tucson Gem and Mineral show this year we were approached by a number of people of people at the end of the show who wanted to sell us items that they had had in storage for several years and were not able to sell. Usually they want to sell it to us for half of what they had been trying to unsuccessfully it for. I explain to them that if we were to mark it up about what they were trying to sell it for, we also would not be able to sell it very well. I try and not beat them up too bad but explain to them that if they want to sell us the material at the end of the show, it will have to be at truly a bargain price. Well this lot really was a bargain. We got about a ton of each kind and when it is gone we will not be able to offer it again.
Originally we got the amethyst from a Brazilian gem dealer who had an operation that cobed gem rough out of the rough ametrine crystals from Bolivia. Over several years a couple of tons of amethyst chips pilled up on him. He also had a lot of rutile in quartz that he selectively cut stones from and had a lot of stuff that he didn’t want to cut. He didn’t want to blow them out to bead makers in Asia for nothing. So he had them tumbled and sent them up to us to sell. He wanted so much money for the tumbled stones that we declined to offer them for sale. A few years later he told us to bring them to Tucson because he had a customer from India who was going to buy it all. Well the Indian dealer declined to buy it so it sat in storage for several years at Tucson till he got tired of paying storage on it so he blew it out to us for nothing. Which I thought was fair since we had paid freight to and from Tucson.
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