Lapidary clubs promote popular interest and education in lapidary, the craft of working, forming and finishing stone, minerals and gemstones. These clubs sponsor and provide means for their members to engage in all forms of jewellery making, cabochon cutting and faceting, carving, glass beadmaking and craft work. The clubs also promote and facilitate healthy outdoor activities in the form of field trips to various fossicking locations for the purpose of collecting gemstones or mineralspecimens. Lapidary is particularly popular in the United States of America and Australia where large numbers of clubs were formed in the 1950s and 1960s.
A lapidary is an artist or artisan who forms stone, minerals, or gemstones into decorative items such as cabochons, engraved gems, and faceted designs. A lapidarist uses the lapidary techniques of cutting, grinding, and polishing. Hardstone carving requires specialized carving techniques.
A cabochon is a gemstone which has been shaped and polished as opposed to faceted. The resulting form is usually a convex (rounded) obverse with a flat reverse.
Facets are flat faces on geometric shapes. The organization of naturally occurring facets was key to early developments in crystallography, since they reflect the underlying symmetry of the crystal structure. Gemstones commonly have facets cut into them in order to improve their appearance by allowing them to reflect light.
In Australia, the peak body is the Australian Federation of Lapidary & Allied Crafts Associations Inc known as AFLACA. AFLACA has eight member organisations that together represent several hundred lapidary and related clubs across Australia.
Each year AFLACA holds its GEMBOREE which is a national Gem, Lapidary and Mineral Competition and Show which in addition to exhibitions and displays includes Lapidary Club members competing for awards in a range of lapidary categories.
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Amethyst is a violet variety of quartz.
A gemstone is a piece of mineral crystal which, in cut and polished form, is used to make jewelry or other adornments. However, certain rocks and occasionally organic materials that are not minerals are also used for jewelry and are therefore often considered to be gemstones as well. Most gemstones are hard, but some soft minerals are used in jewelry because of their luster or other physical properties that have aesthetic value. Rarity is another characteristic that lends value to a gemstone.
Topaz is a silicate mineral of aluminium and fluorine with the chemical formula Al2SiO4(F, OH)2. Topaz crystallizes in the orthorhombic system, and its crystals are mostly prismatic terminated by pyramidal and other faces. It is one of the hardest naturally occurring minerals (Mohs hardness of 8) and is the hardest of any silicate mineral. This hardness combined with its usual transparency and variety of colors means that it has acquired wide use in jewellery as a cut gemstone as well as for intaglios and other gemstone carvings.
Garnets are a group of silicate minerals that have been used since the Bronze Age as gemstones and abrasives.
Jade refers to an ornamental mineral, mostly known for its green varieties. It can refer to either of two different minerals: nephrite, a silicate of calcium and magnesium, or jadeite, a silicate of sodium and aluminium.
Tiger's eye is a
chatoyant gemstone that is usually a metamorphic rock with a golden to red-brown colour and a silky lustre. As members of the quartz group, tiger's eye and the related blue-coloured mineral hawk's eye gain their silky, lustrous appearance from the parallel intergrowth of quartz crystals and altered amphibole fibres that have mostly turned into limonite.
Amateur geology is the recreational study and hobby of collecting rocks and mineral specimens from the natural environment.
A gemcutter is a person who cuts, shapes, and polishes natural and synthetic gemstones. In historical use it usually refers to an artist who made hardstone carvings or engraved gems, a branch of miniature sculpture or ornament in gemstone.
Tsavorite or tsavolite is a variety of the garnet group species grossular, a calcium-aluminium garnet with the formula Ca3Al2Si3O12. Trace amounts of vanadium or chromium provide the green color.
"Apache tears" is the popular term for rounded pebbles of obsidian or "obsidianites" composed of black or dark-colored natural volcanic glass, usually of rhyolite composition and bearing conchoidal fracture. Also known by the lithologic term "marekanite", this variety of obsidian occurs as subrounded to subangular bodies up to about 2 inches in diameter, often bearing indented surfaces. Internally the pebbles sometimes contain fine bands or microlites and though in reflected light they appear black and opaque, they may be translucent in transmitted light. Apache tears fall between 5 and 5.5 in hardness on the Mohs scale.
The Lake Superior agate is a type of agate stained by iron and found on the shores of Lake Superior. Its wide distribution and iron-rich bands of color reflect the gemstone's geologic history in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas and Michigan. In 1969 the Lake Superior agate was designated by the Minnesota Legislature as the official state gemstone.
The mineral industry of Somalia produces small quantities of gemstones and salt. The country also has deposits of feldspar, gypsum, iron ore, copper, gold, kaolin, limestone, natural gas, quartz, silica sand, tantalum, tin, and uranium. The mineral industry makes a small contribution to Somalia’s exports and economy in general.
The Delaware Mineralogical Society, Inc., also known as DMS, is a U. S. registered tax-deductible 503 (c) (3) non-profit organization located in Wilmington, Delaware, USA. Its primary purpose is to promote education in the earth sciences. DMS was instrumental in the recommendation of Delawares' official mineral Sillimanite to the legislature in 1977.
The Mineral and Lapidary Museum of Henderson County is a non-profit, volunteer-run museum in Hendersonville, North Carolina founded in 1997 at 400 North Main Street in the middle of the city's Historic District.
The Lapidary Journal Jewelry Artist is an American magazine dedicated to lapidary interests such as gemology, jewelry design, metalworking, mineralogy, rocks, and gemstones.
Dan Hausel a polymath of martial arts, geology, writing, astronomy, art, and public speaking. Hall-of-Fame 10th degree black belt grandmaster of Shorin-Ryu Karate and Kobudo, mineral exploration geologist who made several gold, colored gemstone, and diamond deposit discoveries in Alaska, Colorado, Montana and Wyoming, author of more than 600 publications including books, maps, professional papers and magazine articles, public speaker, artist, former astronomy lecturer for the Hansen Planetarium in Utah, and former rock musician.
John Sinkankas was an honored Navy officer and aviator, noted gemologist, gem carver and gem faceter, author of many books and articles on minerals and gemstones, and a bookseller and bibliographer of rare books.
A lapidary is a text, often a whole book, giving "information about the properties and virtues of precious and semi-precious stones", that is to say a work on gemology. Lapidaries were very popular in the Middle Ages, when belief in the inherent power of gems for various purposes was widely held, and among the wealthy collecting jewels was often an obsession, as well as a popular way to store and transport capital.
The Shelby Gem Factory, also known as ICT Incorporated, is a Michigan company that manufactures artificial gemstones through proprietary processes. The factory makes more varieties of man-made gemstones than any other in the world. It grows artificial gems and gem simulants, including synthetic ruby and sapphire and simulated diamonds, citrine, topaz, and other birthstone substitutes, and mounts them in gold or silver jewelry.
