| Original Message: I'm not saying it's impossible! |
|---|
|
Hi Joyce, I am reminded of the post I left a couple of years ago, where I said "turquoise is always opaque"—which is (or was) a defining truism for that gem material. I can cite mineral books that say this as a fact. But the point was not to say that "there's no such thing as translucent turquoise." The points were: 1) translucent blue-green materials are [mostly] not turquoise; and 2) translucent blue-green stones or glasses cannot be "turquoise colored"—but rather are "teal," because turquoise itself is not translucent (speaking of color dynamics). Whereupon one of our members pointed out that turquoise had been found in a crystalline state, and the crystals were translucent—a phenomenon I was not aware of. However, this extremely RARE occurrence of turquoise does not modify the practicality of the "opaque rule" for 99.99% of occurrences in beadmaking. Nevertheless, in no time at all people are wondering 'maybe my translucent blue-green beads are crystalline turquoise'—when this would be so unlikely as to be practically ridiculous. A PRACTICAL suggestion that is valid and useful for a great percentage of the time, is not a blanket statement saying "no such thing," nor even necessarily "too rare." It is a statement that says "too many people now think their purple beads are accidentally that color, because it's know that SOME glass can turn purple under certain circumstances—but most purple beads were made to be purple." Another example: In the 19th C., for a short time, some US soldiers were trained to ride camels in the Southwest (I think was the location), and it is said that the four corners of the camel blankets MAY have held large chevron beads as weights. So lets calculate how many large chevron beads MIGHT be circulating from that temporary situation. Under a hundred would be a reasonable guess. Nevertheless, among collectors of American (context) trade beads, big chevron beads were often speculated to have "come from camel blankets." (See the article by Sorrensen in Arizona Highways, 1971.) There would have to have been hundreds of camels with blankets (if indeed any had chevron beads at all), for everyone who thinks he or she has one (assuming there is some percentage of loss that ought to be included in speculations). Reasonably, there would be MANY MORE chevron beads in the US (though they are fairly rare anyway) that came directly from Venice through trade relations; and then also via Africa, recently (probably misrepresented as "American Indian trade beads"), that are in the hands of collectors. But many collectors would like to believe the unlikely but romantic story they fancy. That's all. Jamey All rights reserved by Bead Collector Network and its users |
|
|