How much for that rock on the pile of papers?

[diamondcut]

Last year, while exploring some remote corner of the Tucson Gem and Mineral Show, Denver based gem and mineral dealer Morgan Sonsthagen came across an attractive bright pinkish-orange rock being used as a paper weight. Thinking it was a rhodochrosite he asked the dealer, "how much for that rock on the pile of papers"? The seller claimed that he couldn''t sell the rock because it was holding down all of his papers. After a short negotiation, Morgan volunteered to find the guy a new rock for his pile of papers and they agreed on a price for the orange rock. That 150 gram rock turned out to be triplite, an extremely rare mineral found sparingly at a few localities throughout the world.... from http://www.multicolour.com/triplite/





Pretty cool and seems like good profit too.

 

[Independent Gal]

Maybe for a hardcore stone collector, but not sure us jewelry types would get that excited by an extremely fragile, heavily included, not very pretty stone!

 

[diamondcut]

My customer point me out at this stone and ordered ring with it, so I guess it''s a matter of perspective. I guess there are also enough people who won''t get excited by an extremely fragile, heavily included, not very pretty stone called emerald, for example.

 

[twodoor2]

I heard about this today in my multicolour.com newsletter. Some people like collecting something because it is very rare. For example, taeeffite (excuse the spelling) is extremely rare, one of the rarest stones in the world. It''s color is akin to a very light kunzite, but some people get excited over the rarity factor. When something is both rare and beautiful at the same time though (like benitoite), then that''s exciting.