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Greetings Orchidians,
For the last forty five years, I've been an amateur mineralogist,
lapidary, and jeweler. I've been a member and lurker on this list
almost two years. It's been wonderful to see all the technological
advances, especially the synthesis of gems and the understanding of
the physics and chemistry of gems.
There has been a disturbing trend developing in the industry, that I
first noticed with the green beryls. I was ok with the distinction
between green beryl and emerald, iffy as it may be. However, the ruby
- red sapphire pseudo-distinction has prompted me to write my first
e-mail to this group. I call this trend "counting angels on the head
of a pin."
The names and identities of many familiar gems come from antiquity,
long before we had technological means for identification. Ruby was
accepted as a hard clear or asterated stone within a certain range of
the color red. Then we discovered the chemical nature of different
mineral species and we excluded spinel and some garnets from the realm
of ruby - ruby is corundum. Ok. In all the common literature until
recently corundum within a certain range of red is ruby, all other
corundum is sapphire. We've known for over a century that chrome as a
dopant will cause corundum to be red/ruby. That's what is used to make
synthetic ruby. Recently we've found out that at least one other
dopant can color corundum red and can probably be found to be the
colorant in many other recognized rubies. Since the long standing
definition of ruby as red corundum as distinct from all other colors
of the same mineral species is already arbitrary but clear enough,
then the motivation for even finer distinctions based on dopants has
an unworthy motivation. I believe that certain aspects of the industry
are using the ability to make finer and finer distinctions as an
exclusionary method to buoy the prices of certain rubies and keep the
supplies small enough to justify the high prices. This prevents some
people from rightfullly benefitting from their discovery and
exploitation of non chrome rubies. What is the industry going to do
when rubies are discovered that contain both chrome and other red
causing dopants. The chrome spectroscopic signature will be there,
therefor they're rubies. Right? What if the majority of the dopants
are other than chrome? Like the situation with the garnet and feldspar
families, the majority species determines what it is called. With more
non chrome dopants, these stones are sapphires not rubies. This is
pure speculation on my part, but it carries the "counting angels"
logic a little farther, in the hope of helping us to think about the
absolutes we get cornered into defending. It is always my goal to get
people to question their assumptions, even their sacred cows. Better
thinking comes from this. On the question of when is a ruby not a
ruby, remember that almost all of the people on this earth are unaware
of this as a real problem. If they were aware of it, they wouldn't
care in the slightest about it's resolution.
I have not meant to offend anyone with my references to "angels" and
"sacred cows." If I have, I apologize. I really do try not to be
ethnocentric or oppressive. In these dangerous times, we really need
to develope our sense of humor. If we get too serious we'll be at a
disadvantage in combatting racism against all the loving and
contributing arab and Islamic peoples of the world as well as
combatting the oppression of all the loving and contributing jewish
peoples of the world. We can't allow ourselves to be driven by
revenge now. We have real opportunities to do things differently in
this new millenium. I encourage us all to take the offered
opoportunities. Enough.
Love to you all and peace, Marty Wittstruck
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