Hello everyone. It has been awhile since I have been on here. I’ve recently revisted my fascination of gemstones and dug out my “collection” to continue studying learning.
Without going in to the reason for doing so I would like to ask for an opinion of keeping different types of gemstones mixed together in a pouch/bag/satchel or whatever you would like to call it. I do understand the basics of the Mohs scale and hardness of gems etc. however I would like to know if keeping stones together are really going to significantly “damage” eachother.
When I decided I needed to set my hobby aside I wanted to condense my tools and collection for storage and I basically put all of my gems from their individual specimen containers into one small velvet bag. At the time I was aware that they could scratch or dull eachother but since they are all non precious stones and are not very large/heavy it was not much of a concern. They are all faceted lose and natural stones, I would say in total maybe 500cts. The quality of about 1/4 of them are very good with excellent clarity and minimal inclusions. Most of them are small around 1-3cts or less but there are also a lot of larger 10+ct stones also (most of these are not very good quality). They range from 5.5 up to 8(8.5 maybe) on the mohs (with the exception of only a few very small (less than .5ct) corundum if any at all and a few diamonds the size of the ball of a pen or smaller. I would say the majority of them are topaz, quartz and citrine and peridot.
So my question is:
If I keep these stones mixed together, do I realistically need to worry about them being significantly damaged anytime in the near future? Again I would like an opinion based on the question itself without going in to “why” I am keeping them this way.
Thank you!