Sunset Yellow and Greenish Yellow to Amber colored Apatite rough from Tanzania. This is very lovely material with a considerable portion of the rough being facet grade. The material is very gemmy and unlike most Apatite this material is not heavily fractured; however, much of the material does contain what seems to be either Chatoyancy and/or  something like adularescence. I don't know how this will impact any faceted gems from this lot and therefore can't advise for or against such action. The material is in fairly chunky pieces averaging around 5.5 carats and I would say roughly 30% of the material looks like medium to high grade facet rough where the chatoyancy and/or Adularescence is weak enough to finish a gem that should show little or no Cat's Eye effect; however, much more of the material is facet grade if you don't mind the Chatoyancy being clearly visible in the finished gems. Any way you look at it this material is a steal at our current price and it is worth picking up a small 50 gram sample for as it only costs you $25.00. This may turn up being considerably more valuable as we really haven't seen any "Apatite" quite like this.

Please note that this material was sold to us as Apatite and our partner was adamant of the material being Apatite; however, we have our reservations. From an initial run through the material we thought it was cat's-eye opal. Our partner in Tanzania dispelled our reservations by assuring us the material was Apatite; however, some of our reservations still persist. You should purchase this lot taking these reservations into consideration.

1. COMING SOON!