Amethyst earrings

[mickey]

Here are two trillion amethyst earrings. Only one is from JXR. Guess which one?

[mickey]

Maybe I should have said two amethyst trillion earrings.

[arappaho]

Absolutely stunning, Mickey!
And yes, two trillion of them would be quite a sight!
The one on the left is JXR. Where's the other one from?
Those are going to make someone's ears very happy!
Joe

[dan]

OK gentlemen! Let a novice in on how you tell from a picture which one comes from a particular mine. Are we talking about the color or what.

And yes, I was impressed by the sheer number of the earrings.
Dan

[lauriesrocks]

The one on the left has a slight blue flash, thus JXR.

[major]

The one on the right looks more gemmy/shiny, I initially thought the right, but when considered the blue, hmmmm . I'll still have to go with my first gut feeling and say the right one, but just a guess

[dan]

Laurie,
Thanks. Is JXR the only mine with the blue flash? I haven't yet broken into the presents my wife got me for Christmas. Looking forward to it. ;D Dan

[arappaho]

Dan, I wanted to be a tad emphatic about my guess, but it is
still just that, a guess.
JXR is known for it's "blue flash" or hue and it is a fairly unique
characteristic of that mine.
But just watch it be the one on the right.
Joe

[Ryan]

Hmmm, let me see the other 1,999,999,999,998 earrings and Ill take a guess.

[Barrett]

Amethyst from many different places can have a strong blue component. Zambian and Uruguay material first come to mind. What kind of light are you using to take your photo?

[rickb29212]

William. I'm guessing that both of them are from JXR. Do I get them if I win? Wife would love to have them. Rick B

[Barrett]

I very much like the matched pair earrings, Mickey. JXR material always gets me going. Who set them? What is the weight of both? Me likee!
Amethyst should have a secondary color component to be considered a "good" amethyst. With colored stones color is king and when it comes to amethyst red or blue is what you want as a secondary color. Now this goes against the rules of color and gemstones where typically the most sought after is as pure a color as you can get with minimal to no secondary colors. ie. pure red ruby with no pink or purple, peridot as pure a green with no yellow, spessartine garnet with no brown. With amethyst, pure purple is not the desired color. Without blue or red "flash" then it can't hold a candle to one that does. I personally prefer blue to red when it comes to ammy color. Many people prefer red due to the whole "siberian" marketing term and they assume it's just better(red flash) since "siberian" amethyst WERE supposed to be the best in the world or ever found....don't know where that came from..the whole siberian amethyst are what all others are compared to. Now the term means color and not location..
Jackson Crossroads ammy's can have an extremely strong blue so much so that when viewed under fluorescent lights they will actually be all blue with little noticeable purple.
As far as color JXR is about as good as it gets, in my opinion. The only other location of any size that produces gem quality amethyst of a color rivaling JXR is Zambian.(there are smatterings of other places like tanzania, korea, bolivia that produce just as fine color and crystal as jxr but they are not well known). Zambians will look just as good as any JXR color wise.

Sorry for the thread jack, Mickey, wanted to open up the discussion some more on amethyst in general and why JXR gemstones(and crystals for that matter)are better than almost all others. I have sold many a JXR cut stone and more times than I can count I would have to explain and justify to the buyer or interested party exactly why this JXR cut stone was $400 and the Brazilian amethyst of the same size next to it was only $50. Here are a couple pics saved for one reason or another to show some good blue. I have lots of JXR cut stone pics but only a couple ever have the best/most blue.




Here is a great report my buddy Peter Torraca wrote. He is a custom cutter and has traveled the world buying gem rough to cut. Well after hearing me talk about JXR over and over he decided to source some rough to cut to see if it was all that. I will Copy and Paste it.


"A few weeks ago, I was commissioned to cut a large piece of JXR amethyst by our very own Lyric. I had yet to get my hands on some of the fabled JXR material, so I was doubly eager to get to work."

"Lyric sent me a large crystal point. The great majority of it was your typical heavily included quartz. But the point of the crystal was clean enough to produce a nice stone. Fortunately, it was richly colored enough to hide some of the feathers that would necessarily remain. "



I’ve used graph paper here for a visual reference. The outlined box is 1.5 in. or about 4cm.

While trying to figure out what shape to use for the stone, I was struck by the color zoning of this amethyst. I’m used to seeing amethyst color zoned with darker and lighter tones of purple, or maybe purple and colorless zones. But this crystal had distinct purple and violet color zones. Given a violet zone of sufficient strength and the correct orientation, I can understand how a finished stone could demonstrate a “blue flash”.



After trimming out the heavily included areas, I found that the rough favored a square cushion. Fortunately, this matched well with Lyric’s request. I had just finished cutting a large Brazilian amethyst of about the same tone in Bob Strickland’s OMNI Square Cushion design. It’s a very bright design and easy to tweak on the fly. Since it worked well with the Brazilian rough, I decided to use it for this stone.

This happy coincidence allowed me to directly compare the JXR amethyst with classic Brazilian material:




Now, these are not advertising images, so I’ve taken some liberty to tweak the colors in Photoshop to make the color distinctions more obvious. The color difference is fairly apparent when the stones are side-by-side, though only someone who has looked at a lot of amethyst would notice if viewing either stone solo.

Here are my more formal images of both stones, along with details. It's worth noting that my lighting setup was a little different on the Brazilian amethyst, thus it appears much brighter here:


JXR Amethyst 11.64ct., 14.6x14.6x10mm



Brazilian Amethyst 13.63ct., 16x16x10mm

[dan]

Now I am seeing the blue "flash"! ;D It took until the last pictures for me to see it well. I appreciate the detailed information on secondary colors and the worth of the stone.

So which one is the winner?

[mickey]

William,
Thanks for the color info. These stones are 12mm and I set them with the help of Tripps.

The one on the right is from JXR. I have no idea where the other is from. The reason that I asked is that I noticed the JXR stone to be more brilliant than the other. These will be going to my wife for a Christmas present

Mickey

[Barrett]

Yes, that is one thing about JXR material is it has whats called good "crystal". Maybe Laurie can elaborate more on exactly how and why quartz from one loaction will look like water and another quartz crystal, made of exactly the same same stuff, thats from a different location can have a less glassy look. I think it may have to do with how the atoms arrange themselves and how cleanly they do so while at the same time not trapping any undesirables.

JXR just had all the right conditions going for it. temperature was perfect, pressure, and cooling rate to name a few all came together to create fantastic crystals. What also makes JXR crystals excellent is they were formed in gas pockets as opposed to veins like most other places. The gas pockets have what you could call a controlled environment, generally speaking....using what ever is in that one gas bubble to make crystals. With vein material like diamond hill and six's(i haven't been to the reel but pretty sdure it's vein as well) you get temperature fluctuations and multiple influxis of superheated soup all using the natural piping thats condusive to vein deposits. that makes them less likely to have a nice steady cooling rate ot a nice consistant silicaon soup to form with. Diamond Hill has some very nice crystals but as we all know they are frosted..probably due to some late stage influx of water. That is vein material for you.

[gsellis]

Two Trillion? I don't think you can get more than $500 for those?

Amethyst is notriously hard to photograph. The one on the right appears to be JXR and the one on the left could even be Diamond Hill. But hard to tell. The one on the left has the blue/grey that DH does. But based on the photo.

And no, JXR is not the only blue flash. The 'Siberian' and Korean flash blue too. The Siberian is likely sourced from Africa. JXR will not just flash blue, but red too. And the source lighting can make a huge difference (not color change, but definitely spectrum performance, but that is also how you get the red and blue).