Gem Quiz

This Gem Looks Like Amethyst, Has A Color Range Like Quartz, But Isn’t Often Used In Jewelry

Yet, there’s hardly a gemologist who doesn’t own at least one specimen.

Published

3 years ago

November 13, 2019

Chris Burslem

This Gem Looks Like Amethyst, Has A Color Range Like Quartz, But Isn’t Often Used In Jewelry

A CLASSIC GEMOLOGY LESSON is to place me beside amethyst and see who — based on color alone — can tell us apart (it is but folly to try). While purple is my hallmark color, it is but just one in my wide spectrum. In terms of range of color, I am rivaled only by quartz. And whereas some varieties of quartz can dazzle, I glow. I am luminescent, sometimes even phosphorescent. I’m also pretty darn useful. I am used as a flux in the production of steel and aluminum, as an added mineral in water, to make camera lenses and telescopes. The one area I’m not so commonly employed is jewelry — too soft they say. Still there’s hardly a budding gemologist in the world who doesn’t own at least one specimen of me.

Who am I?

Time to Do What You've Always Wanted? Time to Call Wilkerson.

It was time. Teri Allen and her brother, Nick Pavlich, Jr., had been at the helm of Dearborn Jewelers of Plymouth in Plymouth, Mich., for decades. Their father, Nick Pavlich, Sr., had founded the store in 1950, but after so many wonderful years helping families around Michigan celebrate their most important moments, it was time to get some “moments” of their own. Teri says Wilkerson was the logical choice to run their retirement sale. “They’re the only company that specializes in closing jewelry stores,” she says. During the sale, Teri says a highlight was seeing so many generations of customers who wanted to buy “that one last piece of jewelry from us.” Would she recommend Wilkerson? Absolutely. “There is no way that I would have been able to do this by myself.”