citrine

[swirly]

when do you call a piece of quartz crystal a citrine or smoky. i live in wangaratta vic,s i spend a lot of my time fossicking for stones in reedy creek eldorado.about a week ago my stepdaughter found a 100 ct plus  orange quartz crystal a top stone.we often find a lot of pale yellow to orange  crystals of good faceting quality many stones are a mixture of yellow and brown shadeding into light to dark brown to almost black. my question is where do you draw the line between citrine and smoky quartz.and how does it affect the value.thanks.

[Lapis Lupinus]

It seems to be a bit of a continuum from citrine to smoky quartz. I tend to term quartz as citrine when it's light yellow right through to a smoky honey colour. If it's brown to black it's smoky quartz. As for orange that's pretty rare - well I've never found any in all my trips to Powelltown. The most prized ones I have are a deep yellow.

[swirly]

thanks. back in the 1980,s i fossicked a lot around the powell town creeks i got a lot of very large rock crystals,smokys and citrines in ounces not carats' most of gem quality, the citrines were usually on the pale side all lovely stones. ive still got most of the stones i found back then.im still finding good quality gem quartz of all colours plus agates toulmaline the odd small topaz and a little gold plus good quality jasper,and the odd amethyst'

[MakkyBrown]

Sounds like you've had some excellent fossicking trips  . I think smokie is light grey through to black and citrine all the browns, honey,orange and yellow etc.
Would like to get over to Vic to a fossick sometime, been awhile since I've done any fossicking due to other commitments.

MB

[fossickeract]

  Hard to put a value on natural citrine. I've cut some pale citrine from Powelltown and watched it go to a golden yellow as the stone progressed, lovely stuff. On the other hand I've cut some golden yellow from Tinga near Glen Innes and watched the colour disappear to become colourless. In the later case the yellow was near surface only I think. Deep lead citrine has perhaps been naturally baked by lava flows down the ancient river beds or just surface stained by iron minerals. I also have a 200g orange brown crystal found at Pretty Valley during a minerama but no won't cut that one. Can see the Powelltown Portugese cut and the orange brown crystal in my photo gallery album

[FlashGP]

I've seen light browny yellow quartz sold as Cogniac Citrine, and recon if the yellows and browns are citrine, we should also have Whisky Citrine.  Although once brown we have tended to call it smoky quartz, perhaps we should call it rum quartz.

 

[swirly]

good idea