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Interesting little stone

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Lady_Disdain

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I confess a weakness for unusual stones with interesting effects. So, when I saw a very nice hackmanite with very pronounced colour change, I just had to get it.

Hackmanite is a tenebrescent stone, which can go from a darker shade to a pale one in the daylight (mined near Quebec) or the other direction, from pale to dark (Burma and Afghani stones). This kind of colour change is unusual as it is gradual (instead of instant as in an alex or CC garnet), almost as if the stone was a capacitator charging up. It also loses colour slowly, taking around a day or so in the dark to get back to pale and as long as 7 days to get the very palest tone.

This is a Burma hackmanite, which goes from a very pale pink to a dark purple. At first, I wasn''t getting the full spectrum, but then I remembered that my windows are UV blocking - not my brightest moment. It is supposed to fluoresce bright orange in LW UV, but I haven''t seen that yet as I don''t have a LW penlight. It is very small (0.3 cts and 5mm by 4mm) and sleepy, but carrying it around is a lot of fun, as I am sure PCers will understand!

It is rather soft (a 6), but I am planning to get it set in a nice protective setting. Any ideas?

This is the colour after around 2 minutes in an over cast day (I wasn''t fast enough to capture the paler shade). It usually stabelizes slightly darker than this indoors.

LDHackmanite2minutes.jpg
 

chrono

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What a fun stone. Personally I would not set it and just leave it in my collection as a "play" stone but if you want to set it, then a pronged pendant is best. I don''t think it''ll make it through the bezeling process.
 

Lady_Disdain

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After about 5 minutes in an overcast, late afternoon, it was this shade. It goes to a dark, royal purple in a sunny day or nearer midday.

I was thinking of setting in fine silver, which doesn''t really require much to fold it over, probably on a pendant. Then again, it might look very nicejust sitting in my collection. Decisions, decisions...

LDHackmanite5minutes.jpg
 

T L

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What a lovely and interesting stone. Thank you for sharing your penchant for unusual gems.
 

FrekeChild

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Dec 14, 2007
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Wow!!!!! What a cool stone!!!! When can we get pics of you whole collection Lady_D?
 

oldmancoyote

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Interesting stone. Thank you for sharing!

It looks very neon-y glowing; I wonder what it would look like side by side with a good Paraiba... (talk about strong contrast, eh?)
 

Harriet

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LD,
I like it. I share your penchant. I recently saw and fell in like with a phosphophylite.
 
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