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BOB & NANCY HICKS RANCH
OLD STOCK
CHATOYANT GREEN
WITH FAN PATTERNS
OVAL PENDANT
MEASURES ABOUT 1.5" LONG x 1" WIDE
STUNNING LAPIDARY WORK
POLISHED FACE / ROUGH BACK
STERLING SILVER WIRE WRAP
#146

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FYI




Victoria Stone is also known as “Imori Stone”, named after it’s Japanese creator, Dr. Imori. It is not an  artificial or fake stone. What Dr. Imori was able to accomplish was to actually blend several different minerals using a special process known only to him to come up with an Imori Stone, commonly called Victoria Stone.

This beautiful reconstructed gem is mineralogically similar to Nephrite Jade. It has a harness of six, specific gravity of 3.02 and a refractive index of 1.62. It was laboratory produced from natural raw materials such as quartz, feldspar, magnesite, calcite, fluorspar, etc. for a total of seven different minerals-fused together under high pressure and a high temperature and again mineralized to make this gem by adding special crystallizers and habit regulators.

This is not an imitation or synthetic but is a reconstructed natural stone. The boule of Victoria stone was slowly cooled down for 35 to 40 days to make it crystallize into the pretty fan shapes. Victoria Stone is minerlogically similar to nephrite jade, but the arrangement of the actinolite crystals is different. Instead of the crystals interlocking and tying together as they do with jade, they have crystallized in fan shapes to provide the beauty of
the stone. As a result of this difference, the rough stone is more likely to crack or splinter if overheated.

Victoria Stone could be bought by the boule or in slices when it was produced in 15 different colors from 1960 to the 1980’s –green, sky blue, reddish purple, yellow green, blue green, sky indigo, chocolate, yellow, deep indigo, white, quiet green, quiet yellow, quiet blue, grey and black.

Dr. Imori died without confiding in anyone how the process worked and no one has been able to duplicate it. There is only a limited and nonreplenishable supply of Victoria Stone in existence, when this material is used up to make jewelry and cabochons, it will become scarcer and about impossible to find.

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Artificial stone is a name for various kinds of synthetic stone products used from the 18th century onward. As well as artistic uses, they have been used in building construction, civil engineering work, and industrial uses such as grindstones.

One of the earliest was Lithodipyra (also called Coade stone), a ceramic created by Eleanor Coade (1733–1821), and produced from 1769 to 1833. Later, in 1844, Frederick Ransome created a Patent Siliceous Stone, which comprised sand and powdered flint in an alkaline solution. By heating it in an enclosed high temperature steam boiler the siliceous particles were bound together and could be moulded or worked into filtering slabs, vases, tombstones, decorative architectural work, emery wheels and grindstones.

This was followed by Victoria stone, which comprises finely-crushed Mountsorrel (Leicestershire) granite solid surface and Portland cement, carefully mixed by machinery in the proportions of three to one and cast in moulds of the required shape. When the blocks are set hard the moulds are loosened and the blocks placed in a solution of silicate of soda for about two weeks for the purpose of indurating and hardening them. Many manufacturers turn out a material that is practically non-porous and is able effectually to resist the corroding influence of sea air or the impure atmosphere of large towns.

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A lapidary (the word means "concerned with stones") is an artist or artisan who forms stone, mineral, gemstones, and other suitably durable materials (amber, shell, jet, pearl, copal, coral, horn and bone, glass and other synthetics) into decorative items such as engraved gems, including cameos, or cabochons, and faceted designs. Hardstone carving is the term in art history for the objects produced and the craft. Diamond cutters are generally not referred to as lapidaries, due to the specialized techniques which are required to work diamond. Gemcutter typically refers to diamond cutters or producers of faceted jewels in modern contexts, but artists producing engraved gems, jade carvings and the like in older historical contexts.
 
The arts of a sculptor or stonemason do not generally fall within the definition, though chiseling inscriptions in stone, and preparing laboratory 'thin sections' may be considered lapidary arts. But, figurative engraved gems and cameos are certainly the work of artists. In modern contexts, the term is most commonly associated with jewelry and decorative household items (e.g. bookends, clock faces, ornaments, etc.) A specialized form of lapidary work is the inlaying of marble and gemstones into a marble matrix, known in English as "pietra dura" for the hardstones like onyx, jasper and carnelian that are used, but called in Florence and Naples, where the technique was developed in the 16th century, opere di commessi. The Medici Chapel at San Lorenzo in Florence is completely veneered with inlaid hard stones. The specialty of "micromosaics", developed from the late 18th century in Naples and Rome, in which minute slivers of glass are assembled to create still life, cityscape views and the like, is sometimes covered under the umbrella term of lapidary. In China, lapidary work specializing in jade carving has been continuous since at least the Shang dynasty.

Apart from figurative carving, there are three broad categories of lapidary arts. These are the procedures of tumbling, cabochon cutting, and faceting. The distinction is somewhat loose, and leaves a broad range within the term cabochon. The picture to the left is of a rural, commercial cutting operation in Thailand. This small factory cuts thousands of carats of sapphire annually.
 
Most lapidary work is done using motorized equipment and resin or metal bonded diamond tooling in successively decreasing particle sizes until a polish is achieved. Often, the final polish will use a different medium, such as tin oxide, glasitite or cerium(IV) oxide. Older techniques, still popular with hobbyists, used bonded grinding wheels of silicon carbide, with only using a diamond tipped saw. Diamond cutting, because of the extreme hardness of diamonds, cannot be done with silicon carbide, and requires the use of diamond tools.
 
There are also many other forms of lapidary, not just cutting and polishing stones and gemstones. These include: casting, faceting, carving, jewellery, mosaics (eg. little slices of opal on potch, obsidian or another black stone and with a clear dome (glass or crystal quartz) on top. There are lapidary clubs throughout the world. In Australia there are numerous gemshows including an annual gemshow, the Gemborree which is a nation-wide lapidary competition. There is a collection of gem and mineral shows held in Tucson, Arizona, at the beginning of February each year. This group of shows constitutes the largest gem and mineral event in the world. The event was originally started with the Tucson Gem and Mineral Society Show and has now grown to include dozens of other independent shows.

 


 (THIS PICTURE FOR DISPLAY ONLY)

 

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