Matching bottles to raw minerals

[Wattana]

I have always been fascinated by the raw rocks and minerals from which snuff bottles are created. When I first got the snuff bottle bug in the early 1970s, I, like many others before and since, learned the basics of collecting from Lilla Perry’s seminal book*. The section on bottles made of natural stone held a special fascination for me. In reading how to identify the various rocks and minerals I developed a parallel interest in mineralogy, which has remained with me ever since.

One of the things I enjoy doing with my stone bottles is to match them to chunks of natural stone. Where possible I look for pieces of roughly the same size as the bottle. Only in this way can I truly grasp the magnitude of the lapidary’s task when he starts off on a new bottle.

The ones I am particularly attracted to are the crystalline minerals like clear quartz crystal, the various shades of smoky quartz, rose quartz, amethyst, citrine, topaz and aquamarine. The first image below shows a line-up of crystalline bottles that will be covered in this thread. Finding single crystals of "bottle size" is not as easy as it may seem!

 
So as not to repeat information unnecessarily, when a bottle has already been posted elsewhere on this forum I will only give the hyperlink.

The first post on this thread is one of the purest of all minerals – clear colourless quartz.
Information on the bottle can be found here:

http://snuffbottle.smfforfree.com/index.php/topic,1842.msg22758.html#msg22758 

This thread is mainly for visual enjoyment, so I'll be short with the technical jargon. The quartz cluster consists of one large and several smaller crystals set at angles to one another. All display nicely terminated hexagonal prisms, characteristic of quartz silica. The largest crystal stands 9 cm high (just over 3 1/2 in).

Tom

[*Lilla S. Perry, Chinese Snuff Bottles – The Adventures and Studies of a Collector; Charles Tuttle, Vermont, 1960]

[AntPeople]

Very nice..... It adds another dimension to the already amazing bottle

Thanks a lot for sharing.

Pin

[Fiveroosters aka clayandbrush]

Dear Tom,
I know that I will love this thread!! You had an excellent idea, seeing the matching it adds a lot to the bottles. Well done!
Giovanni

[George]

Tom, that is the coolest idea ! 

You really have some of the most beautiful clear, smokey, rose, amethyst, citrine, topaz, and aquamarine bottles ...

Just a wonderful idea..

[Joey Silver / Si Zhouyi 義周司]

Dear Tom,
    Truly a brilliant idea! 
But why didn't you show me the mineral specimens when you showed me the bottles? I would have loved to see them 'live'.
Best,
 Joey

[George]

A little off the mineral topic, but just curious if this is the purpose of the jade I sent you, or if you ever were able to have a bottle carved from that ..

[Wattana]

Thanks guys for your encouraging comments.

George,
     I have been looking for a nice large piece of jade for some time. They do show up occasionally in Bangkok. But I have never found any that match the whites, beiges, celadon greens and russet 'skins' of the ones in my collection. Unfortunately I don't have any bottles close to the chunk of jade you sent me. I was just attracted by its colours.

Dear Joey,
     You never asked to see them! How was I to know you are interested in mineral specimens?

Tom

[Fiveroosters aka clayandbrush]

Dear Tom,
this thread had no more post and I am wondering if it is for lack of raw material. If so, I have found a source where you can find crystals of adequate size, the Naica mines in Mexico, see below
Kind regards 
Giovanni

[Joey Silver / Si Zhouyi 義周司]

Dear Giovanni,
     Those are BIG crystals! And I'm a 'size-queen'! 
Best,
 Joey

[George]

I saw these crystal caves on a documentary .. Really amazing..

I suspect Tom is the only one among us with the creative flare to think of matching bottles to raw materials..

[Joey Silver / Si Zhouyi 義周司]

Unless you meant 'flair' George; I agree Tom could be on fire with this! 
Best,
 Joey

[rpfstoneman]

I suspect Tom is the only one among us with the creative flare to think of matching bottles to raw materials.

Hold up there! I have a few, but just need some time to take the pictures.       They'll come along eventually, Charll

[George]

I suspect Tom is the only one among us with the creative flare to think of matching bottles to raw materials.

Hold up there! I have a few, but just need some time to take the pictures.       They'll come along eventually, Charll

Excellent !

[Wattana]

I have found a source where you can find crystals of adequate size, the Naica mines in Mexico, see below

Dear Giovanni,
    I tried to get one of the smaller crystals you can see in the bottom left-hand corner of your picture, but it was the size of a football and weighed XXX kg, so couldn't 'hide' it in my pocket!   

Regards, Tom

PS: I plan to take more pictures soon, so please be patient! Hopefully Charll can contribute some nice examples too. 

[Wattana]

We have a long weekend starting tonight, so I will try and find time (between writing my Christmas cards) to photograph some more mineral specimens.

Meanwhile, here is my next match......... CITRINE

     Citrine belongs to the same family of minerals as quartz silica, which is the most abundant single mineral on earth. It makes up about 12% of the earth's crust, occurring in a very wide variety of metamorphic, igneous and sedimentary rocks. Despite this, natural citrine is relatively rare. When found it is often in small crystal clusters lining the inside of geodes. Large crystals are therefore not easy to get hold of, and I have yet to find single crystals of suitable size to create a snuff bottle.   
     The crystals shown in this post are 4.5 x 2.3 cm, 5.0 x 4.3 cm, and 3.8 x 3.0 cm respectively. Contrary to what you might expect, they do not come from Brazil. I bought them many years ago from a lovely old family-run rock & mineral shop in Saigon. According to the shop owner (who only dealt in Vietnamese specimens), they originate from Lam Dong Province, Central Vietnam. [Later note: could this be the source for 18th and 19th century snuff bottles? The traditional assumption is that this and similar raw minerals like tourmaline were imported during the mid and later Qing period either directly or indirectly from Brazil.]
     Citrine gets its wonderful yellow hues from very small amounts of iron particles trapped in this quartz mineral. In fact, Citrine usually has only about 40 parts per million particles of iron. The oxidation of this iron is what gives the mineral its yellow colour.
     The name citrine comes from the old French word ‘citrin’ which means yellow. Surprisingly (at least for someone with a knowledge of the language) no web source mentions the Greek origin, where the word for yellow is ‘kitrino’. (In line with other Greek words when Latinized, the ‘k’ becomes a ‘c’, as in ‘keramiko’ becoming ‘ceramic’.)   
     There is much confusion between citrine and topaz, and citrine has previously been known as topaz, topaz-quartz, Madeira topaz, Spanish topaz and Saxon topaz, as well as by other fanciful names. However, the snuff bottle cllector need not worry too much about any confusion. In 40 years of collecting I have only ever come across one confirmed bottle made of topaz. It is in the Bob Stevens book, so I assume it to be genuine, as he was known to have his bottles tested by gemological laboratories.
    Information on the bottles can be found here:

http://snuffbottle.smfforfree.com/index.php/topic,1842.0/msg,23690.html

http://snuffbottle.smfforfree.com/index.php/topic,1842.0/msg,24046.html

[George]

Wonderful match up Tom !

Your so right about larger crystals being quite rare.. Making your bottles that much more outstanding !

[Pat - 查尚杰]

Tom

This is an incredibly great way to display your prime bottles.  Wow. 

[YT]

Tom

This is an incredibly great way to display your prime bottles.  Wow. 

Dear Tom,

Pat is right, the pictures looked incredible. The way it is being displayed has never been done in traditional books. You should work on coming up with a book. A scholarly book that bring readers to the basic material and composition.

Cheers,
YT

[Joey Silver / Si Zhouyi 義周司]

Dear Tom,
    It is facinating that the material for snuff bottles of Citrine and other related stones  could possibly come from SE Asia and not from Brazil. It seems very logical, now that you have stated it.
Is there a way to analyse the Citrine composition and differentiate Vietnamese Citrine from Brazilian?
Is there proof that the Citrine you bought in Saigon was indeed from Lamdong?
In any event, you've made us think and expand our horizons.
Thank you,
Joey

[Wattana]

George, Pat and YT,
     Thanks again for your encouraging comments. Wow, a scholarly book? Maybe that can be my retirement project!   

Dear Joey,
     It was aquamarine from the Hindu Kush region that first got me wondering whether the sources of some of these more exotic minerals during the Qing dynasty were indeed closer to home than most assume.
     To answer your questions:
(1) There are indeed some expensive (and destructive!) tests that can indicate the probable source of a particular sample. I say probable, because I don't think there is ever 100% certainty, and I don't wish to lose a bottle finding out.....well sir, we can say there is a 90% probability the bottle we just vaporized came from SE Asia.
(2) At the time I bought these specimens Vietnam was not exactly a great importer, so it is very unlikely that this small husband-and-wife shop would be selling imported minerals. They had some amazing electric blue aquamarine and tourmaline crystals, but they were very small. I asked if he had anything larger, indicating the 4-5 cm long crystals found in Bangkok. He then stated that their shop sold only Vietnamese sourced items. I had no reason to disbelieve him. It was not a boast - more an apology.
(3) Every single specimen in the shop (and there were thousands) had a label saying which part of the country it came from. I have the labels from every piece I bought there. The aquamarines and beryls all came from Thanh Hoa in Northeast Vietnam; the rutilated quartz and augite from Luc Yen, North Vietnam; sapphire from Dac Lac, Central Vietnam; garnet from Phu Tho Province in Northeast Vietnam; peridot from Gia Lai, Central Vietnam; amethyst from Nha Trang Province; violet fluorite came from Dak Lak in Central Vietnam; while blue-green fluorite and citrine came from Lam Dong. This couple certainly knew their rocks! 

Tom