Joined: Sun Oct 16, 2005 12:42 pm Posts: 2846 Location: Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
It probably means that it's made mostly for export
I think the 'mum association with funerals is of Italian origin, and since my little bit of France belonged to Italy at one time, that's probably where they got that from. I'll have to ask about where that came from one of these days.
Everyone else seems to think they are good luck, or a positive of some sort.
Joined: Sun Oct 16, 2005 12:22 pm Posts: 21602 Location: San Francisco
Sidebar: I'm sure you will all agree that it was very difficult identifying the stones based on the inclusions within them. But, if we had an RI, SG and polariscope/conoscope reaction, we could have all ID'd those stones on the first round.
Why am I brining this up?
Because we have often been taught to immediately check the stone with magnification in order to identify it. As you can see by this quiz, it may be the last thing to check in order to ID a gem.
Still, you can usually get some really useful clues from just looking at a stone with the loupe if you can see the whole of the stone, a feeling for its hardness, whether it is isotropic or anisotropic in a coloured stone, what kind of fracture and eventual cleavage the stone has (stones that has been around more than ten days from the cutting factory usually have small damages), the amount of birefringence etc.
Btw; I got the GT now and it is really a great software! Easy to use and with huge amount of good info! Thank you very much, Bill!
_________________ If it sounds good, then say it again!
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