Look carefully at a collection of fine quartz crystals. Could you mistake them for diamonds? Obviously not, but there are some similarities, and I’m not talking of intrinsic value, of course! Like diamonds, quartz crystals are much harder than glass, like diamonds they have natural flaws, or inclusions, and like diamonds they come in a [...]

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Quartz crystals from Brandberg mounted as Pendants
Quartz crystals have long been a great favorite with mineral collectors. Shelves lined with a wide range of different varieties are to be seen in many a fine collection, but nowadays they are also appearing in another guise: natural crystal jewelry.
While artists and jewelers have often used polished stones [...]

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The country of Namibia on the South Western coast of Africa is a land of extremes. Large tracts of it are an arid semi-desert vastness, but it is the source of some of the greatest mineral wealth in the world The southern coastal stretches of the country, where the icy cold South Atlantic ocean [...]

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Some of the most sought after and exotic features of fine quartz crystals are phantoms. These are colored areas within the crystal which ‘mimic’ the shape of the outline, giving the effect of a ‘phantom’ crystal within the crystal. On occasion these chevron shaped areas repeat themselves at intervals along the length of the crystal. [...]

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