| Gems, A Lively Guide for the Casual Collector
by Daniel J. Dennis Jr.
published by Abrams, New York, NY. 1999.
Hardcover, color, 8" x 10", 192 pages, $29.95.
Reviewed by June Culp Zeitner.
This book, a beginner’s guide to buying gems and jewelry, is written
by the senior gem show host for the Home Shopping Network on television. The book
is intended to help hesitant people acquire fine jewelry, appreciate the gems
and jewels of their friends and those in museum collections, and also treasure
their own gem heirlooms. It is about buying jewelry, but, it concentrates mainly
on gems.
In the opening chapter, the author dismisses the ancient classification of
only four gems being deemed “precious.” He shows a practical and timely
way of pricing stones. For example, he points out that an exceptionally beautiful,
rare, and well-cut garnet is worth more than a heavily included, lifeless emerald.
He classifies blue topaz, coral, amethyst, and turquoise with the inexpensive
stones, but cautions that the price groupings should not be taken as written in
stone.
Asterism, adularescence, aventurescence, and other phenomena are well defined
also. The author discusses the sources of the gems, the types of deposits, and
the mining methods. However, it is apparent that he is not a field collector himself.
A chapter covering gem enhancement is up-to-date and includes the crucial issues
of disclosure. Although the Federal Trade Commission ruled that any treatment
requiring special care must be disclosed, it also ruled that treatments like irradiating
and oiling need not be disclosed. The author credits home shopping channels with
educating the public on gems. However, false information is given, too.
Since the author knows his audience well, people with genuine interest who
are lacking knowledge, he writes in a very informal, almost folksy way. He does,
however, stick to the formal term “en cabochon.”
The largest part of the book is dedicated to information regarding specific
gems. These are presented in an alphabetic manner. The facts were most likely
chosen according to importance to the consumer. The “Most Popular Gemstones”
chapter is followed by “Other Gems and Minerals.” Here it is hard to
determine why some were included while other, better choices were omitted. For
example, milarite is not nearly as well known by those interested in gems and
lapidary as amazonite, gem chrysocolla, epidote, and variscite. Are things over
simplified for the television consumer? Oregon opal is not usually faceted, as
the book says it is, it does not look anything like white quartz, and it occurs
in thundereggs, not geodes.
The list of “Weird Stones” at the end of the “Other Gems and
Minerals” is weird itself. The author seems to have confused the drab, uncuttable
fossil ammonites from Morocco with the lovely, iridescent gem material from Canada
(ammolite). He also thinks that there is something weird about the wonderful charoite
from Russia, and that septarians are an unsightly mass of yellow calcite and other
materials. He says that Picasso marble is named after someone in Utah.
The photos of the elegant, faceted gems on the frontispiece are sparkling and
vivid. Unfortunately, the rest of the pictures are not . . . consider black agate!
Nevertheless, the book does do what it was intended to do. It gives people
help about choosing stones, buying jewelry, and caring for it. It answers the
questions of some of the beginning buyers, and hopefully inspires them to read
more books about the field. Bookstores, libraries, and the Internet list many
books on gems, jewelry, beads, and lapidary arts. Many of the top ones have been
published by Abrams.
June Culp Zeitner, who has been writing for the Lapidary Journal
since 1956 and joined the editorial staff in 1967, is the author of nine gem and
mineral books, and has helped to start the National Rockhound and Lapidary Hall
of Fame.
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