Hear, hear, Sali. I have to heartily agree. Green amethyst sounds
OK to me. And I can sell it. To sell, one of the factors is name
recognition. What the hell is prasiolite to the average consumer ?
It's green amethyst, and they'll buy it that way. Prasiolite sounds
like a material for kitchen counter tops. Gemology has its place,
but there's scientific correctness, and then there's sales.
Sometimes the two just don't mix. Zoisite was a good case in
point.
I totally agree that gemology has its’ place, and that place is
right there in your business, each and every moment of each and every
day. Without gemology, you wouldn’t know at what price to buy and
sell stones and jewelry. Without gemology, all blue stones would
still be called sapphires, all red stones would still be called
rubies and all green stones would still be called emeralds. People
would be buying and selling green quartz as emerald because they’d be
too ignorant to know the difference.
Gemstones are divided into Groups, species and varieties in order
that we know what the heck they ARE. That’s why we offer morganite
(the pink variety of the beryl species) instead of “pink
emerald.” Or heliodor (the orangey yellow variety of the beryl
species) instead of “yellow emerald”. If you have trouble
pronouncing the word heliodor, or if it isn’t saleworthy enough for
you, it can be called golden beryl. If you don’t think anyone will
buy your morganite, it is perfectly aceptable to call it pink beryl.
If you can’t stomach the correct term of prasiolite, there’s no
problem calling it green quartz, but green “amethyst” is not only
wrong, but underhanded and dishonest.
To KNOW that amethyst (the purple variety of the quartz species)
is purple, and ONLY purple, then to turn around and sell prasiolite
(the green variety of the quartz species) as amethyst just
because you can sell more of it due to name recognition, well, that’s
just unethical, irresponsible and shameful. It puts me in mind of the
red beryl from Utah that dealers were calling “red emerald” for a
while. That didn’t last, and neither will “green amethyst.”
Prasiolite may sound like a material for a kitchen countertop to
some, but that’s only because it is new and unfamiliar. I can’t help
but wonder how strange the terms ruby, emerald and sapphire sounded
when they were new. How about chrysoberyl, chalcedony, agate,
tsavorite, or yes, even tanzanite? They’re all strange-sounding words
if you’ve never heard them before, but we all can pronounce them
today. Yes, Tiffany & Co took an unattractive species that, most of
which, looks pretty much like frozen poop when it comes out of the
ground (zoisite), heated it, duplicated the natural blue variety of
that species and named it tanzanite. The thing is, there was no
prior color of transparent zoisite to use for name recognition as a
variety, and Tiffany & Co spent a lot of time and money promoting
their new one, as opposed to borrowing an already established variety
name that would be unethical. Zoisite is a species, tanzanite is a
variety. There’s nothing irresponsible or unethical about naming a
new variety.
Now people are heating and irradiating various quartz species to
make a green variety, and there is a name for that variety
(prasiolite). If a person is calling it by the name of another, more
familiar variety (amethyst) just so that they can sell more of it,
they’re nothing but a huckster who should be running a booth at the
carnival instead of posing as a responsible steward of the gem and
jewelry industry.
James S. Duncan, G.G.
James in SoFL
