TheManWithNoName
Registered Shopper
- Joined
- Feb 16, 2023
- Messages
- 1,343
I see this seems to be Gemporia's latest brainwave for supposedly showing the 'quality' of something.
Lots of shows recently have had presenters showing a translucent, bordering opaque, stone such as an Agate - and then holding a torch behind it, literally no more than 2 or 3 centimetres away, to supposedly show how 'clear' the stone is.
It's complete nonsense. If you hold a torch that close behind a piece of paper or a thinly cut piece of wood, the light will shine through it.
The fact that they need to force light through it with a torch shows just how cloudy the stone really is.
The real problem is this:
People either buy transparent gemstones for clarity - in which case, they'll buy gem quality stones such as garnets or tourmalines - or they buy translucent or opaque stones for their lovely patterns - in which case, they'll buy nice patterned Jaspers or Agates.
What Gemporia have is relatively boring stones like Branca Onyx or Chalcedony that offer neither - they're not clear and sparkly, but they're not translucent or opaque with attractive patterns on either - they're just boring plain translucent stones - so in order to make them look appealing or valuable, they're ramming light through it to make it look more appealing. Slight problem, nobody wears a necklace with daylight shining through their neck or with the sun shining 3 centimetres from their neck. So a boring stone remains a boring stone.
On the subject of boring stones, they were selling 'Watermelon Garnet' last night and hyping it up based on its supposed rarity. All that it was was opaque plain rounds of Garnet that had formed where red and green varieties of Garnet meet together on the rough underground. It's not a specific 'type' of Garnet like they were making out. It's no different to something like Ruby-Zoisite, where Ruby and Zoisite meet together on the rough - or Azurite Malachite - where Azurite and Malachite meet together on the rough.
Hyped up so that they could flog it for £80!
Lots of shows recently have had presenters showing a translucent, bordering opaque, stone such as an Agate - and then holding a torch behind it, literally no more than 2 or 3 centimetres away, to supposedly show how 'clear' the stone is.
It's complete nonsense. If you hold a torch that close behind a piece of paper or a thinly cut piece of wood, the light will shine through it.
The fact that they need to force light through it with a torch shows just how cloudy the stone really is.
The real problem is this:
People either buy transparent gemstones for clarity - in which case, they'll buy gem quality stones such as garnets or tourmalines - or they buy translucent or opaque stones for their lovely patterns - in which case, they'll buy nice patterned Jaspers or Agates.
What Gemporia have is relatively boring stones like Branca Onyx or Chalcedony that offer neither - they're not clear and sparkly, but they're not translucent or opaque with attractive patterns on either - they're just boring plain translucent stones - so in order to make them look appealing or valuable, they're ramming light through it to make it look more appealing. Slight problem, nobody wears a necklace with daylight shining through their neck or with the sun shining 3 centimetres from their neck. So a boring stone remains a boring stone.
On the subject of boring stones, they were selling 'Watermelon Garnet' last night and hyping it up based on its supposed rarity. All that it was was opaque plain rounds of Garnet that had formed where red and green varieties of Garnet meet together on the rough underground. It's not a specific 'type' of Garnet like they were making out. It's no different to something like Ruby-Zoisite, where Ruby and Zoisite meet together on the rough - or Azurite Malachite - where Azurite and Malachite meet together on the rough.
Hyped up so that they could flog it for £80!
.
. This very piece on Lindsey's shift. Not £149 and not really that alluring blue, after all...
