Hello? Is this spod you mean?

Spodumene is a not-so-known gemstone. But it's uses other than adornment are lesser known but quite fascinating. The stone's discovery is pretty recent by gemstone standards. First described in 1800, the gemstone mineral was located in Sweden.

CALLING ALL MOBILE DEVICES
It is found in lithium-rich pegmatites. Wait a minute; lithium? Isn't that what my cell phone battery is made of? What the hey! Lithium is extracted from spodumene by fusing in acid. Then it's application is myriad. Ceramics, car batteries, cell phone batteries, even medicine--the list goes on.

That's all well and good--but I like my spodumene in rings, thank you.

Curator's Eye has a pleochroic spodumene from Afghanistan

The stone can exhibit extraordinary pleochroism (multi-hues on same stone). Cut along the C axis, this specimen shows violet in the center and alluring turquoise on the long ends. Va-voom, right?

A STONE BY ANY OTHER NAME
Look at all the colors possible with this material. Some color varieties have their own name. The pale green variety is called Hiddenite.



One of the most delicate varieties, Kunzite, named for early gemologist George Frederick Kunz is a most unusual lilac-pink. My kind of gemstone. Just what I had in mind.



Now I suppose you'll all want to get some of this gemstone material. That's fine, there's enough to go around; at least for a while. Now hop to it.