Talk:Marcasite jewellery

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Gemology and Jewelry: Jewelry

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I am sure that through history people have used some pyrite in jewelry. But Kunz, GEMS AND PRECIOUS STONES OF NORTH AMERICA (1890) gives evidence that pyrite has not been a significant jewelry item at least since the 1890s (let alone marcasite, as that term is used by mineralogists today),

Kunz spends a lot of time on very minor precious stones, such as onyx and noble serpentine. But virtually his entire discussion of pyrite as gem is on page 199 and reads: "The Colorado crystals are compact enough to cut into the faceted gem known in Europe as 'marcasite,' which was extensively mounted in gold during the last century, but has been almost entirely superseded by the introduction of bright steel jewelry." Nine years later he wrote "steel jewelry ... has entirely replaced the so-called marcasite jewelry", Johnson's Universal Cyclopædia: A New Edition - Volume 4 - Page 780

More recent marcasite jewelry is very common in jewelry shops, and antique shops, flea markets, and on line. A close look shows Kunz's claim is still true: many things labelled as such are actually just steel or some similar looking white metal pressed into patterns resembling densely set small faceted stones.

And, when there are actual stones, they are black or gray. They do not look like pyrite. One explanation would be as D.J. Conway, ‎Brian Ed. Conway report in 2011 "Most marcasite jewelry today is actually faceted hematite." That may be true of high end merchandise that I never see. But there is also a thriving commercial trade in dark gray 'synthetic marcasite' for cheap jewelry, at prices like a few cents per small round stone, in lots of 1,000, which you can easily find on line. Those stones are probably "an imitation substance, hematine, which closely resembles hematite, made of stainless steel, chromium and nickel sulfides." Both quotes are from their book Crystal Enchantments, page 113.

I do not want to edit the article until I get some feed back on this. But it seems that in the past hundred plus years little 'marcasite jewelry' has been made of pyrite---and of course less is made of what mineralogists today call marcasite. Colin McLarty (talk) 17:04, 8 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]