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 Post subject: Is anyone familiar with the stone vasonite or vassonite?
PostPosted: Wed Aug 03, 2011 4:04 pm 
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Hello there - is anyone familiar with the stone vasonite or vassonite - a deep bottle green stone that is rarely clean. I can't find anything anywhere about it - where it comes from Mohs and other details. Could someone share their knowledge with me. Many thanks


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 Post subject: Re: Is anyone familiar with the stone vasonite or vassonite?
PostPosted: Wed Aug 03, 2011 10:14 pm 
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I love a mystery. Those names don't show up in Mindat's comprehensive list of minerals. A Google search turned up only 5 Etsy sellers who carry the material. One of them identifies it as a rare garnet. There is no green garnet of that name. Massive hydrogrossular garnet is sometimes green but I've never heard that name associated with it. A cinnamon-hued grossular garnet is known as "hessonite" or "essonite," which sounds somewhat similar.

My personal belief without further information is that the name you posted is a misnomer. If I had to guess at the identify of the stones pictured at Etsy (they vary considerably) I'd start with hydrogrossular garnet or idocrase (a.k.a vesuvianite and Californite, sometimes incorrectly as "California jade" or "Happy Camp Jade). Some of the Etsy images also look a lot like the tektite glass known as Moldavite. The only way to positively identify the material is by careful gemological testing.

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 Post subject: Re: Is anyone familiar with the stone vasonite or vassonite?
PostPosted: Thu Aug 04, 2011 2:13 am 
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ROM wrote:
idocrase (a.k.a vesuvianite and Californite, sometimes incorrectly as "California jade" or "Happy Camp Jade")


Thank you for (unintentionally) solving a mystery for me! My mother showed me a fabulous Happy Camp "jade" pendant the other day she'd bought from a miner (Happy Camp is not far from here.) It was translucent and had the most perfect, fabulous little pyrite cube inclusions, but didn't seem like any jade I've ever seen....

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 Post subject: Re: Is anyone familiar with the stone vasonite or vassonite?
PostPosted: Thu Aug 04, 2011 6:18 am 
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Thank you for your replies - it was very cheap and I bought some in Jaipur recently for intrigue value really. The gemstone industry is a wonderful couldron of inventiveness.


Last edited by shangrilagems on Sat Jun 11, 2016 11:34 am, edited 1 time in total.

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 Post subject: Re: Is anyone familiar with the stone vasonite or vassonite?
PostPosted: Thu Aug 04, 2011 6:25 am 
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Hello there again - many thanks - this ineed looks like vesuvianite which the Jaipuri's are miss-pronouncing as Vassonite and people are picking up on it and selling it as this. Well many thanks - problems solved. I wil post a photo of it. Many thanks Sarajane


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 Post subject: Re: Is anyone familiar with the stone vasonite or vassonite?
PostPosted: Thu Aug 04, 2011 10:38 am 
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shangrilagems wrote:
Hello there again - many thanks - this ineed looks like vesuvianite which the Jaipuri's are miss-pronouncing as Vassonite and people are picking up on it and selling it as this.


That's exactly what I suspected. I've noticed that "new" gems show up quite often through mispronunciation of established gem names. The trade-name coiners also help confuse matters.

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 Post subject: Re: Is anyone familiar with the stone vasonite or vassonite?
PostPosted: Sat Aug 13, 2011 10:35 am 
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Hello,

I'm happy to help. Vesonite / Vessonite is how Jaipur traders call VESUVIANITE. There are two types of "Vesonites" that you can find in Jaipur. The first one is a nice transparent green facet cut gemstone that looks like Peridot (except that it's almost singly refractive). This one comes from Kenya. It's the most valued. It's sometimes emerald green => Cr rich, even more valued. The other one you can find is massive, translucent, yellowish-green to brownish-green, usually cut in cabochon that can weight over 100 ct. This one comes from Rajasthan, India, not too far from Jaipur. Very easy to recognize between cross polars because it shows strong anomalous reddish, pinkish and purplish colors (anomalous polycrystal reaction). Both are quite rare but can be found sometimes in Jaipur.

If you have any other question regarding gems coming from Jaipur traders I will be more than happy to help (I go there every 6 months since year 2000).

Thierry


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