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 Post subject: Curious Specimen
PostPosted: Tue Jul 13, 2010 1:52 am 
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On Sunday I went to the San Francisco Fine Mineral Show with Gem-n00b (Karim) and he surprised me with a gift of an unusual specimen,he found from a dealer specializing in Chinese minerals:
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mystery3.jpg
mystery3.jpg [ 199.1 KiB | Viewed 1662 times ]

With some magnification (10X), we see several platy, transparent, doubly refractive,purplish-pink crystals, some containing trigonal centers with higher color concentrations:
Attachment:
mystery1.jpg
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You'll never guess what this stuff is.....or will you?


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 Post subject: Re: Curious Specimen
PostPosted: Tue Jul 13, 2010 11:46 am 
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Don't you all post at the same time! You'll overload my bandwidth!
No clue?

I personally have never seen anything like it and was surprised to find out, these crystals are synthetic ruby.....or simply, synthetic blades of light red corundum. :shock:


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 Post subject: Re: Curious Specimen
PostPosted: Tue Jul 13, 2010 12:07 pm 
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I'm pretty sure I've already seen something like that. The strange fact is that I'm almost sure it was on this forum... and I cannot find it again. :D

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 Post subject: Re: Curious Specimen
PostPosted: Tue Jul 13, 2010 12:18 pm 
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:oops: Shoot...if it was here, I oerlooked that post. :oops:
And apparently, so did every one else, but you, maialetto, LOL!


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 Post subject: Re: Curious Specimen
PostPosted: Tue Jul 13, 2010 12:36 pm 
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Don't take my words for facts! My memory is (in)famous for being unreliable. :)
But I definitely remember crystals like those... :?:

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 Post subject: Re: Curious Specimen
PostPosted: Tue Jul 13, 2010 12:41 pm 
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Found it! And it was on this forum, as I recalled. :mrgreen:

http://gemologyonline.com/Forum/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=11239

My memory isn't that bad after all... :wink:

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 Post subject: Re: Curious Specimen
PostPosted: Tue Jul 13, 2010 12:42 pm 
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Barbra Voltaire wrote:
I personally have never seen anything like it and was surprised to find out, these crystals are synthetic ruby.....or simply, synthetic blades of light red corundum. :shock:


So it's a fake/composed specimen or what?
ciao
alberto

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 Post subject: Re: Curious Specimen
PostPosted: Tue Jul 13, 2010 1:01 pm 
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It appears as though the corundum xls were grown on a matrix which I can not identify.
There were several examples of this stuff; I recall seeing several flats at the show, very reasonably priced, perhaps $10-$20 each.
Karim was fascinated by it and got me a piece so I could set it up with my new horizontal scope set-up.


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 Post subject: Re: Curious Specimen
PostPosted: Tue Jul 13, 2010 1:36 pm 
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Looks like desert rose gone wild!


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 Post subject: Re: Curious Specimen
PostPosted: Tue Jul 13, 2010 2:49 pm 
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It was advertised as synthetic ruby from a lab in China, cost was $10. I thought it would look interesting under magnification, and it appears I was right. :)


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 Post subject: Re: Curious Specimen
PostPosted: Tue Jul 13, 2010 8:35 pm 
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i was gone so missed the thread..wouldn't have guessed right either way..go figure it's from china too. I am surprised it was advertised as syn. LOL I bet a few are floating aroiund advertised as "natural"
pretty cool though..i wouldn't mind having one myself..wonder how it's done

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 Post subject: Re: Curious Specimen
PostPosted: Tue Jul 13, 2010 8:56 pm 
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Very cool!!!

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 Post subject: Re: Curious Specimen
PostPosted: Wed Jul 14, 2010 3:10 am 
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I'll see if I can find the name of the vendor...


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 Post subject: Re: Curious Specimen
PostPosted: Wed Jul 14, 2010 3:12 am 
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gem-n00b wrote:
I'll see if I can find the name of the vendor...


thx Karim, i would love to have a specimen.
ciao
alberto

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 Post subject: Re: Curious Specimen
PostPosted: Tue Jul 27, 2010 10:29 am 
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maialetto wrote:
Found it! And it was on this forum, as I recalled. :mrgreen:

http://gemologyonline.com/Forum/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=11239

My memory isn't that bad after all... :wink:


ehi its nice to see this stuff again!! :)
yes it looks very similar to the one i posted on that topic...
would be interesting to know what it actually is...they might sell it as synth ruby just to make it look important...
can it be so cheap to produce it? if they sell specimen for 10$
plus...how can they grow synth ruby on that matrix? it seems "fragile" and i guess ruby needs some more "extreme" conditions.
:?: :?:

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