Garnet snuff bottles any around ?

[PeterH]

I have found garnet snuff bottles hard to come by.

I will post a picture of a rhodolite (garnet) snuff bottle in the hope others may post some more images of theirs. This one came from a lady collector in Michigan, USA who had it since 1950. It is approximately 2 1/2 inch tall.

A lot of South African garnet was imported to China in the 1970's and later. I have seen photos of snuff bottles on a Chinese export site but my attempts to order about 4 years ago, only resulted in my being told they were not produced any more. The garnet snuff bottle images subsequently dissapeared. One had to order a minum of 10 or 20 from memory. Which I tried to do but to no avail.

I would give a good swap (or pay) if there are any up for grabs.

Alternatively if I supplied the garnet material are there any current good Chinese hardstone snuff bottle carvers ?

Please help   Peter

[Joey Silver / Si Zhouyi 義周司]

Dear Peter,
 That looks to me like Zoisite ruby matrix. I bought a bottle like that from YF Yang in 1974 for US$50. There is also a pink stone Rhodonite (Manganese?) which it looks similar to.
Joey

[George]

It does look more like Rhodonite to me as well...

[PeterH]

Good morning to all,

The rhodolite snuff bottle is not in my opinion rhodonite and not ruby/zoisite. It will take time for me to locate it as it is in storage. I will determne the refractive index and do other tests, maybee in a few weeks time once it is located.

In the meantime the best I can come up with is a ( non snuff bottle ) 3 cm high garnet vase from Afghanistan. It is missing a cork top.

best wishes Peter

[Wattana]

Peter,

Looking at the bottle in your first photo, my initial reaction too is that it is not garnet. The small jar in your last post has a tone of red I would more readily associate with garnet. Mind you, the garnet mineral group covers a wide range of variants.

Your refractive index test will hopefully nail its identity. Looking forward to the results. BTW, it sounds like you have quite a lot of testing equipment. I would be interested in doing my own refractive tests. Is there a compact, mobile and inexpensive model you can recommend?

Tom

[PeterH]

Good afternoon Tom

Advise on getting good RI readings. Dont buy a machine that gives automatic readings and does not use RI fluid. In my opinion results are not tops I will even sell you my old one if you want to learn the hard way (joke). The best ones in my opinion dont use in internal light source but have an external light source (battery operated is OK). The Ri fluid is somewhat toxic so I use plastic gloves and a breathing mask. Maybee this is an overkill but at leat wash your hands afterwards and clean up the instrument and surrounding area with tissue.

I did a two day course run by the Gemological Association of Australia a few years back with practical use of lots of instruments. They have a public afteroon once a week where you can bring samples in for ID for a small donation. Would pay to check if there is similar near you. They will advise and maybee sell you one or other equipment ( eg polariscope, dichroscope, jadeite filter, microscope etc or tell you the best place to get the right one. Otherwise Ebay sells the good and the bad and the ugly.

In Adelaide they run a diploma in Gemology course and other qualifications as a teaching institution. The lecturers are highly experienced but do not give written appraisals of gemstones etc. (or snuff bottles if not as claimed). This may have to do with public liability insurance, Im not sure.

Another useful instrument s the Presidium Gem Tester which has a probe linked to a display with a pointer on a scale with glass on the left and various gemstones up to diamond on the far right. I use it mainly to check whether quartz or glass. It also comes in useful for destinguishing nephrite from Peking Glass. It can check diamond or sapphire / ruby also distinguish jadeite from nephrite. Many gemologists dont like it, but it is useful for knowing if a sample is glass. I would not buy as a package togerther with their automatic refractrometer.

Hardness testing can be useful as can specific gravity measurements. With hardness testing yoy can by a kit which will test up to hardness 10. Please dont defile any snuff bottles with scratches.Destructive tests such as scratching, flame fusion etc are big no no"s

Lastly I would not buy a spectroscope unless it gave digital read out of absorption wavelengths. These are of course more expensive which means (gulp) less snuff bottle money. Trying to compare eye piece spectral "rainbows" with standard refrence spectra would be quite a task for me.

Also a unglazed tile for a streak test eh hematite has a cherry red streak.

Well thats enough. My tip pay a visit to your nearest Gemological Association with a few snuff bottles its much cheaper. Phone first to see if they have a weekly open half day.

Best wishes Peter

[Wattana]

Thanks for all the information Peter.

You just jogged my memory. I should forget about buying any of this equipment, and use the cheaper alternative. When I first came to Bangkok in the early 1990s I took a snuff bottle of unknown mineral to AIGS for testing. AIGS (Asian Institute of Gemological Sciences) is right here in Bangkok, and claims to be the largest such establishment in Southeast Asia. They have all the equipment necessary, but had said (at that time, over 20 years ago) they would need to do a destructive test to verify 100% what my bottle was made of!  And the cost of the test, if I wanted a written report, was almost as much as I paid for the bottle, so I beat a hasty retreat, never to return.

I just checked them online. Obviously, their mainstream service is aimed at the jewelry trade, but one interesting test caught my eye, which I assume to be non-destructive, and of relevance to snuff bottle collectors. That is a test on amethyst and citrine to check if it is natural or heat-treated. 

Tom

PS: Hematite, as you probably know, comes from the Greek word 'haema', which means 'blood'. No doubt named in connection with the streak test. 

[PeterH]

Thanks for the information Tom. Very interesting.

I dont get it paying a lot of money for a destructive test. Most university geology departments have spectrometers which can give complete analysis of every element in a snuff bottle. So if you know any geology students or lecturers you can probably get a free analyis. I have one beryl snuff bottle sold at auction as emerald and although I have never had any spectrometer analysis done it would be the best way to confirm the presence of chromium or vanadium present in emerald. I will get this done in due course, no hurry.

Another good instrument is a UV lamp with long and short wave to examine for flouresence. A viewing box is very helpful.  Short wave ultraviolet rays can damage the eyes and hence one needs to wear protective glasses or have similar protection material built into the observation area of the viewing box. I believe that glass protects the eye from shortwave and hence have a small rectangular peice of glass over my viewing pont.

Amber, jade, ruby, sapphire ,tourmaline and flourite are a few flourescent minerals that come to mind.

I have won at auction several so called beryl snuff bottles which turned out to be flourite. Apart from buyer be ware I dont mind as flourite though softer is a nice stone. Fortunately some have turned out to be beryl ones.

The UV box is also great for detecting repairs to stone and all snuff bottles. However I have seen skilled turquoise repairs ( to a statue not a snuff bottle) which dont show up under UV.

Finally a good reference book is GemIdentification Made EasymyMatlins and Bonanno2008 edition byGemStone Press, Canada.
Most libraries will order books if they do not have them. This book covers use of many instruments.

Jet is one of the hardest snuff bottles to identify from photographs. Bakelite, resin and lacquered wood can look similar on photographs. One I have with basket weave design (came from a New Zealand collection) was confirmed by RI. It leaves a very faint carbon trace on paper - difficult to see. I have four all up but still need to do further testing on some of them which are in storage and one of the four is in transit.

Best wishes Peter

[Wattana]

Hi Peter,

Thanks for the additional recommendations, and guidance on books and equipment. Most of the mineral specimens I collect are easily identifiable from their natural formation and, where present, their host matrix. Identifying cut and polished specimens is of course much trickier, but luckily I do not have an interest in jewelry-grade cut gemstones. Hence, my identification needs are more or less limited to snuff bottles. Apart from some modern products, most bottles are made from quite a limited range of rocks and minerals.

The bottle I wanted tested 20-odd years ago looked like an olive-green nephrite conglomerate with large areas of a dark brown material which an experienced collector suggested to be bowenite. The AIGS had said there were possibly two or more different minerals present, and they would have needed to physically remove particles from various areas of the bottle for analysis. They assured me the amounts required were very small, but in my vocabulary that is still a destructive test! By the way, a verbal result was not expensive (around US$20-30), but a written report was many times more. So I declined. 

I have seen very few genuine old fluorite bottles in 40 years of collecting. This may be partly due to this mineral's fragility, reducing its chances of surviving 150-plus years of use. Small antique Chinese bowls and cups seem to have survived better. The few bottles I have seen were quite easily recognized visually from the iridescent inclusions. I have never knowingly seen a fluorite bottle that was of high enough grade not to display strong iridescence under natural light.

I always considered emerald as part of the beryl group, along with aquamarine, heliodor, morganite, etc., the only difference being the colour imparted by the presence of various trace elements. The only old snuff bottles of harder material is a small group of imperially attributed sapphire and ruby examples. 

Interesting that you mention testing for jet. I recently acquired one that was long thought to be a dense blackwood. I wish to carry out my own test to confirm that it is actually jet, so would like to know more about your testing method for this material!

Regards,
Tom

   

[PeterH]

Good evening Tom

I have just receivewd today what I believeis is a an flourite snuff bottle auctioned as an aquamarine. In a separate mailed box from the UK  is a jet one. The flourite one does not change from light to dark when rotated on the polariscope as aquamarine which is double refracting would. It also flouresces strongly under short wabe UV. I dont do hardness scratch tests.
 
I will attempt to get RI values for both tomorrow.  As the RI instrument is mainly designed for cut gems will need sticky tack to make a good airtight contact between bottle and RI fluid.

Another good test for both would be density for which I am still waiting for Swiss 100 gm spring scales to arive - probably next week. The weight of the bottle submersed in water is needed.

density = dry weight of snuff bottle / volume

volume = weight in air - weight in water

So I will see how I go tomorrow with several flourite snuff bottles and jet ones. And after that take digital images of the bottles.

To date heights have included the tops which I won't do anymore as I will be dealing with actual bottles and not images and computer records. I have located the sugilite bottles and will measure height correctly and also re measute the RI and re-photograph.

You can buy nice sharp shiny hematite crystals up to several cm from around the world  eg on ebay.

 

Best wishes Peter

[Joey Silver / Si Zhouyi 義周司]

Dear Peter,
 Is it "Flourite" or 'Fluorite'? If the second, you can go back and modify your prior posts, to cut confusion (I'm confused, for one, though that will only help with part of my confusion. )
Best,
Joey

Good evening Tom

I have just receivewd today what I believeis is a an flourite snuff bottle auctioned as an aquamarine. In a separate mailed box from the UK  is a jet one. The flourite one does not change from light to dark when rotated on the polariscope as aquamarine which is double refracting would. It also flouresces strongly under short wabe UV. I dont do hardness scratch tests.
 
I will attempt to get RI values for both tomorrow.  As the RI instrument is mainly designed for cut gems will need sticky tack to make a good airtight contact between bottle and RI fluid.

Another good test for both would be density for which I am still waiting for Swiss 100 gm spring scales to arive - probably next week. The weight of the bottle submersed in water is needed.

density = dry weight of snuff bottle / volume

volume = weight in air - weight in water

So I will see how I go tomorrow with several flourite snuff bottles and jet ones. And after that take digital images of the bottles.

To date heights have included the tops which I won't do anymore as I will be dealing with actual bottles and not images and computer records. I have located the sugilite bottles and will measure height correctly and also re measute the RI and re-photograph.

You can buy nice sharp shiny hematite crystals up to several cm from around the world  eg on ebay.

 

Best wishes Peter

[PeterH]

Good morning Joey it should spell fluorite. The reason is a mild form of dyslexia. I will write in the future an article with images of fluorite snuff bottles, which from my experience can visually be mistaken as aquamarine ones. Will write on a word processor with spell check and then paste it in this forum.

Very best wishes Peter

[Joey Silver / Si Zhouyi 義周司]

Dear PeterH,
    I've got a mild form of Dyslexia as well, but also a mild case of Asperger's, so I work hard to correct my mistakes, so as not to confuse readers. Thank you, it is easier to deal with when I know the cause.
Best Wishes,
Joey

[Wattana]

Hello Peter,

Yes, I occasionally see fluorite snuff bottles at auction described as aquamarine, rock crystal or amethyst. They are usually quite modern, not well hollowed (for obvious reasons!) and have some crude carved decoration which puts me off bidding. If I ever saw a plain one, even new, I'd be interested. Testing should be fairly easy. Fluorite has a relatively high specific gravity (3.2), and displays high fluorescence under short-wave UV light, as you have already noted. It also has a very low refractive index, as well as very low dispersion, making optical grade specimens highly desirable for lenses in bygone times. Nowadays good quality microscopes and similar optical instruments use synthetic fluorite lenses.

I did not know that aquamarine had any notable double refracting properties.

Jet is trickier to test, so I'm interested to know how you go about this. Its specific gravity overlaps that of several types of dense hardwood. And I would be nervous about immersing a jet bottle in water, since it is potentially porous. What other tests are there?

All best,
Tom

[PeterH]

Good evening Tom

In answer to your questions. Firstly aquamarine is double refracting and like tourmaline shows a change from light to dark when rotaled through 360 degrees on the polariscope. It will change from light to dark every 90 degrees.The single refracting flourite does not change.

A second instrument the calcium dichroscope can alsp destinguish between single and double refracting stones. This cylindrical pocket instrument is around 7 cm lomg and 1.3 cm in diameter. It is held near one eye with the specimen held at the end and than backlight by a light source. The specimen is rotated through 360 degrees and two viewing windows show colour of the stone. It the color in both windows remains the same it is single refracting. If there is a differnce in colour intensity between both windows when rotated the specimen is double refracting. Very easy to use and can be carries in the pocket along with a suitable pen light.

Secondly I dont think jet would be significantly porous. Not the jet used in jewellery or snuff bottles. The dry weight could be repeated after obtaining the weight while subdued in water and then drying with tissue before re-measuring. A bigger problem is to get accurate weight readings with a good quality 100 gram scale.

Another suggestion before determining density is to scrape a small sample from the inside of the bottle. I know one snuff bottle described as black stone provided a few small wooden splinters.

While the polariscope and dichroscope are easy to use the refractometer is more challenging.The glass rectangular window on which the sample is placed is only around 4 mm by 13 mm. It is ideally suited for the flat surface on small faceted gems.
It also works well with similar opague stones.

However with larger snuff bottles a flat surface is needed. With poor polished stones such as malachite or jet, once can fail to obtain  readings. Last night I could not get readings on 3 snuff bottles won at auction as jet. The RI should be 1.66. With another fluorite one I could not get a reading from the flat base of the bottle but did get a reading from the the top (on which the stopper rests). The bottle was placed upside down on the instrument The reading was 1.43 indicating fluorite.

The RI fluid must make a good contact with the instrument reading window and the snuff bottle. If air bubbles are present due to a poor contact no reading will be obtained.The use of blue tack or chewing gum may help made a good contact. Petience is needed as is skill. A carved irrigular surface on a snuff bottle will mean trouble getting results. i need to think of how better to get readings with a refractometer. I may visit the gemological association in a few months time if not resolved by then. 

So jet is troublesome to identify without destructive tests. It produces a chocolate brown streak on an unglazed tile. Complete spectrometer element analysis would be a good alternative if one can get access to one at a university or similar.

I shall persevere with attempted refractometer use.

Best wishes Peter

[PeterH]

The snuff bottle discussed earler with an image is 56 mm high with outtop. It has now been determined to be ruby from its hardness and the fact that it fluoresces pale red under both short and long wave. it is also double refractive as shown by change in colour intensity between both view boxes when rotated using of the dichroscope. There is no zoisite matrix on the bottle.

[Wattana]

A second instrument the calcium dichroscope can also distinguish between single and double refracting stones. This cylindrical pocket instrument is around 7 cm lomg and 1.3 cm in diameter. It is held near one eye with the specimen held at the end and than backlight by a light source. The specimen is rotated through 360 degrees and two viewing windows show colour of the stone. It the color in both windows remains the same it is single refracting. If there is a differnce in colour intensity between both windows when rotated the specimen is double refracting. Very easy to use and can be carries in the pocket along with a suitable pen light.

......

So jet is troublesome to identify without destructive tests. It produces a chocolate brown streak on an unglazed tile. Complete spectrometer element analysis would be a good alternative if one can get access to one at a university or similar.

Hi Peter,

Thanks for yet more useful tips. The pocket dichroscope sounds like a useful item to have. Where would be the best place to look for one?

You are probably right. The easiest way to determine a jet bottle is to scrape off a small amount from the interior. But I would still be nervous about carrying this out!  Would spectrometer element analysis be conclusive? It sounds like a seriously expensive piece of equipment?

Tom

[PeterH]

Good afternoon Tom

The calcite dichroscope is easy to obtain from ebay and is ultra simple to use. Mine is about 7 cm long and about 1.5 cm diameter. Prices on ebay are $ 26 up plus postage and it is so simple there is no point in paying heaps. They all should work. A small strong hand held torch is needed to backlight the specimen. This is a very useful and inexpensive pocket instrument that works on transparent stones. It will not work on opague stones. As long as the back light can illuminate the stone it works fine. If only a thin edge is illuminated it can still be used as long as it fills the two dichroscope view windows.

Spectrograph analyis is only possible if you know a geology student or lecturer or can phone up a uni and be lucky enough to get a freeby. With luck they may be very interested in the stone being viewed.

Jet has a chocolate brown streak on an unglazed streak plate which are available on ebay, search for "mineral streak plate". Very cheap and often in packs of 10. The black ones are good for white streaks and the white ones for other streaks.

The refractometer I have is not up to the job of reading snuff bottles, particularly jet ones.. One has to use what is known as the spot method which only works with a top of the range refractometer model. Mine reads a small spinel crystal accurately and similar stones but struggles with snuff bottles. Either you get a reading or you dont and Ive spent hours in vain getting no reading. As soon as you get back to a small crystalthe reading is there. So one would have to spend close to or over $ 1000 or even $ 2000 up to get a refractometer that is good enough.

Now I have ordered a Persola spring scale which measures up to 100 grams from Amazon.com which will be great for density determination. They are Swiss made. Price including delivery should be under $ 100.

Hope the above information helps.

Best wishes Peter

[PeterH]

Sorry persola should read pesola.

[PeterH]

Here is a link to a 19C garnet snuff bottle sold at auction on 4th December 2010.

Like you have stated not many around.

http://www.invaluable.com/auction-lot/pebble-form-garnet-snuff-bottle.-432-c-1757bab9e1