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Picture
blue moonlight shining brightly through fog and you’ll
understand why this variety of feldspar is named moonstone.
Its shimmering sheen moves through the stone like moonlight.
History
and Lore
The
ancient Hindus thought the moonstone, with its ghostly glow,
was literally formed from moonlight. Legends
say that you can see the future if you hold a moonstone in
your mouth during a full moon.
Moonstone
is a variety of feldspar and the shimmer, which is called
schiller or adularescence, is caused by the intergrowth of
two different types of feldspar, with different refractive
indexes.
In Europe,
moonstone is considered the birthstone for June. In the
United States, it shares the distinction with Alexandrite
and pearl.
Quality,
Value and availability
Fine
moonstone is becoming rare, although lower quality moonstone
is widely available and quite affordable. Moonstones
come in a variety of colours. The body colour can range from
colorless to gray, brown, yellow, green or pink- blues are
rare. The clarity ranges from transparent to translucent.
The best
moonstone has a blue sheen, perfect clarity and a colourless
body colour.Sometimes
moonstones will have an eye as well as a sheen.
A closely
related feldspar variety is known as rainbow moonstone. In
this variety of labrodarite feldspar, the sheen is a variety
of rainbow hues.
Moonstones
are usually cut in a smooth-domed oval cabochon shape to
maximize the effect. Sometimes the yare carved to show a
man-in-the-moon face.
Sources
Moonstone
is mined in Srilanka, southern India, Myanmar(Burma), and
Mexico. The rainbow variety can be found in Southern India
and Madagascar.
Routine
Enhancements
There is
no routine enhancement for moonstone.
Care and
Cleaning
Moonstone
has a hardness of 6 to 6.5 on the Mohs scale. It should be
stored away from other gemstones to prevent scratching.
Clean
moonstone with mild dish soap in warm water : use tooth
brush to scrub behind the stone where dust can collect.
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