[Rockhounds] Sunstone natural and treated

[DonH]

Ted Kowalski wrote:

> Don:
> I'm puzzled? Why would anyone expect a jewelry group to place emphasis on
> mineralogy first?

Well, I do agree with everything you said.  However, he makes statements
that are incorrect or misleading, and the fact that the article is about
gemstones doesn't excuse sloppy work.  At least, some folks don't think so.

> My personal feeling is the warning should go out as soon as it becomes known
> to anybody that the feldspar is treated and is marketed as naturally colored
> andesine/sunstone. To me, that was/is the message. 

Oh I agree.  But this is much more than just a warning and it tries to
get technical.  However, in the last three years as I investigated this
issue, I ran into so much bad information and so much frantic arm-waving
and shrill rhetoric that my work was hampered by all the foolishness.  I
received several mysterious e-mails from people claiming to have secret
or inside information about the real source of the material, whether it
was andesine or labradorite, and who knows what else.

I was contacted about my research about 4 months ago, and as it turns
out, I was only investigating the fake material sold on eBay, not from
the Jewelry Channel, and it quickly became clear these were two
different issues with two clearly different minerals involved.  However,
someone had picked up on my work and misquoted my results, such that
some people were under the impression that what was being sold on the
Jewelery Channel was hematite-included oligoclase from India, which is
also marketed as "sunstone," but this is not true at all!

One thing that should be made clear is that there was a class-action
lawsuit filed, and what appears to be an out-of-court settlement:

http://www.andesineclassaction.com/

I received a phone call about this when it was announced.  This
statement might warrant further scrutiny, but it looks to me like the
JTV folks did *not* admit the stones were treated, as Mr. Federman seems
to state, but rather they settled without contention (this is from the
preceding website):

"Class Counsel and JTV announce that they have reached a settlement in
the lawsuit Hurd v. America’s Collectibles Network, Inc., d/b/a/ Jewelry
Television, No. 225508.  In the Lawsuit, Plaintiffs have alleged that
red and green andesine-labradorite gemstones advertised by JTV as highly
coveted, extremely rare, and all natural, were in reality color
enhanced.  JTV has denied, and continues to deny, all allegations of
wrongdoing and liability made in the Lawsuit, and asserts that the
representations it made about the gemstones were properly based on
industry literature, representations and information from its suppliers,
and gemstone laboratory reports from nationally accredited laboratories."

We won't debate the credibility of JTV's statements.  In any case, I get
aggravated about this issue because this could have been solved a long
time ago.  Many people were suspicious about this new material, but
instead of making a logical effort to determine the nature of this
material in a scientific way, there were plenty of articles and Internet
posts and pontifications, none of which seemed to involve sending some
of the gems to an academic mineralogist to have them analyzed.

I could go on for some time about this mess, but I'd rather put it all
behind me and move on.  However, I hope you understand a little more
about where I'm coming from.

Bottom line: I agree with the fact that this information should be
distributed and thanks for posting it.

Yours,
Don