[Rockhounds] heat treating for color

[Horst Windisch]

I know that amethyst is heated and becomes "citrine". When I just started 
with the hobby (mid-sixties), this"citrine" was being sold as "golden topaz" 
(pushing up the price still more as topaz has a greater value than citrine)

Thus to my mind, this "citrine" should have been offered as "heat-treated 
amethyst" (or am I splitting hairs?)

Horst
----- Original Message ----- 
From: <Pmodreski at aol.com>
To: <rockhounds at lists.drizzle.com>
Sent: Tuesday, October 30, 2007 3:40 PM
Subject: Re: [Rockhounds] heat treating for color


>
> In a message dated 10/30/2007 5:28:03 AM Mountain Daylight Time,
> nospam at orerockon.com writes:
>
> http://orerockon.com/Heat_treating.htm
>
>
> I was just looking at that page of your site, Tim.  For those of us  "not
> into" this, I was quite surprised at all these recipes for heat-treating
> jaspers, etc.
>
> Does anyone know if Native Americans did any such heat-treatment of 
> jaspers
> and flints before knapping them, or did they just use them "as is"?
>
> A separate question, from improving the "knappability" of stones, is about
> its improvement of their color.  How do people feel about the ethics of of
> "improving" color in stones by heat treating?  I don't know a whole lot 
> about
> such things; for example, I had no idea that some carnelian is heat 
> treated to
> improve its color.  To a degree, I tend to feel that such  treatment is, 
> well,
> should I call it dishonest?  Although we all know that  this is commonly 
> done
> in many various way, for many materials.  These  treatments make them look
> pretty for sale in gift shops and use in jewelry, but  of course we 
> collectors,
> hope we know when we are buying material, whether it is  "natural" or 
> treated
> or enhanced in some way.  I don't expect to see things  labeled about that 
> in
> a common gift shop, but one would hope that they are  so labelled if they 
> have
> been treated in ANY way, when sold to collectors!
>
> P.S., in scanning the list on your site, I was a little bit
> (shocked/concerned?) when I saw a recipe for heating "mook jasper" on the 
> list.  I have a
> really nice piece of "mookaite", and it's one that I  particularly enjoy 
> showing
> to kids when I'm giving presentations to school  classes about rocks; they 
> are
> always impressed with the beautiful color pattern  of bright red, yellow,
> buff, tan, plus the cute name.  I'd be very  disillusioned to know that 
> these
> beautiful colors have been enhanced by heating;  I've always assumed that 
> my rock
> is completely natural (and I still hope it  is... but now I'm not 
> completely
> sure).
>
> Pete
>
>
>
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