Rare and Unusual Gemstones in the Australian Museum Collection

Mineral Matters #628

Friday night saw the monthly meeting of the Mineralogical Society of New South Wales. I usually attend via Zoom.

This month, Dayna McGeeney presented an interesting topic: “Rare and Unusual Gemstones in the Australian Museum Collection”. As Dayna wrote in her summary:

The Australian Museum Mineralogy Collection currently holds 838 gemstones in its collection. These facetted and wonderful looking specimens include the expected species and varieties of rubies, sapphires, emeralds, diamonds, opal, garnets, topaz, tourmaline, spinel etc... But, within the gemstone collection are also some rare and unusual cut and polished species you wouldn’t expect to see. These Collectors’ Gemstones are often too soft, brittle and at times toxic – not the sort of stone you want to wear. To a talented gem cutter or gemstone enthusiast they are often a challenge to cut, own and care for future enjoyment. At times, these are ore minerals which rarely occur transparently or a striking colour, but if the environmental conditions are just right to create a crystal when facetted brings out a spectacular brilliance, strong dispersion and the awe that someone would take on the challenge to facet it.

Dayna showed us a range of gemstones, including some surprising ones. The list included cuprite, anglesite, sphalerite, cerussite, triplite, tantalite, stibiotantalite, scheelite, rhodochrosite, cassiterite, ceruleite(!), and crocoite.

I was reminded of a company (now defunct) that I came across in Tucson many years ago called Freaking Cat Gems. They offered some weird facetted stones including (very soft) gypsum and sulphur, and (very hazardous) torbernite!

Here are a few screen grabs from Dayna’s presentation.