Long story short this was found while a shrimper was trolling off of Boca Grande, FL in his net when he pulled it up. It’s 56.30 carats. The facets are somewhat primitive. We have Calusa Indian burial grounds around and I was thinking it might be something from a burial site? The other confusing part is it appears to be Jadeite? is that possible?
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Hi Melissa,
That is a very large facetted briolette.
Its not possible to see the underneath side entirely in the 20241215_163725 image but the 20241215_163735 image has a better view that looks like it has a “fan-tail”, which will have a through-hole to support a jump ring. These are commonly found as a glass center prism crystal in a chandelier or other crystal adorned light fixture.
If you were to do an immersion test with water, glass would become optically invisible. You might even see a planar surface between the fan-tail and body of the crystal where the doublet surfaces are glued together. There are some heavy acrylic adhesives that are optically clear like glass, but they may not disappear completely, since those have a slightly higher refractive index.
To help figure out what this stone is or isn’t, I recommend the immersion test and a specific gravity test. These will help narrow down some possible candidates.
Some of the facet edges are chipped and abraded similar to glass and acrylic articles that have seen some rough seas or rocking-back and forth.
Jadeite will have some form of milky haze in the least opaque specimens available but not optically clear like your specimen is.
Do you see any inclusions in the stone through the microscope?
Cheers!
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Hello, If I’m not mistaken shrimping is using large nets off the bottom of the ocean.
If the analysis of the item using specific gravity or even using a hardness tester reveals glass as suggested. Being part of a chandelier. Due to your location it is definitely a part of a ship wreck…
The history of Florida being so close to the Havana trade route the Spanish operated since the mid 1500’s.
The area has overwhelming looses of ships. Past and present.
Do your research. Look for fancy passenger vessels that were lost with in that area. You may even find pictures of the chandelier on an old passenger vessel that had first class. That sank in the area.