Does this look familiar to anybody?

[bladespark]

http://cgi.ebay.com/HUGE-40-CARAT-CATS-EYE-GEMSTONE-WHOLESALE-LOT-RARE-GEM_W0QQitemZ290222076429QQihZ019QQcategoryZ282QQcmdZViewItemQQ_trksidZp1742.m153.l1262

It says the stone is "cat's eye" but cat's eye what is the question. Several different minerals have a cat's eye effect, and I don't know much about any of them except alexandrite, which this is obviously not. It looks interesting, but I want to know what it IS before I'd consider bidding on it. (Buying something else from the seller, and looking at what else they have that I can combine shipping on and get cheaper.) So does this look familiar to anybody? It's not a stone I know, but I'm still a newbie to stones, really, outside of my area of interest, which is mostly sapphires, and things that are chatoyant. The cat's eye effect isn't chatoyancy, it's something different, and I haven't paid it that much attention.

Comments

[kainhighwind-dr.livejournal.com]

Might be one of the varieties of chrysoberyl (which includes alexandrite)?

http://www.astroshastra.com/gemstore/catseye.asp

Not a great site but does include data on what's simply called "cat's eye" (no particular gemstone) and at least one photo that's similar to the colour and appearance in the listing. Also found another new age-y site about Indian stones that mentioned its opaqueness, and smokey grey-blue colour (which to me describes the eBay listing photos). Also on Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrysoberyl

One variety is simply called "cat's eye" and is commonly found in India. Might be a match but then again...

Heh, I find minerals and gems were easier to identify when they were raw and cut into thin sections for microscopy. *LOL*

[kainhighwind-dr.livejournal.com]

Yeah here we go, the other site... mentions both the smokey and yellow types of cat's eye:

http://www.astromandir.com/catseye.html

The yellow type seemed to come up mentioned more often (the Wikipedia entry also centered on yellow and green chrysoberyl I noticed), but here at least there's some indication that there's more than one kind of that particular "cat's eye".

[kainhighwind-dr.livejournal.com]

Man I wish I could edit posts... sorry about this!

Apparently, cat's eye is indeed chatoyancy (don't know why the French name origin never popped out at me):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chatoyancy

... and there's that mention of cat's eye chrysoberyl again.

[bladespark.livejournal.com]

Aha. Yeah, given the pictures, and the fact of it being from India, that seems to be the stuff.

Thanks!

[kainhighwind-dr.livejournal.com]

No problem! :)

Actually, I read around some more (out of curiosity): apparently, only cat's eye chrysoberyl can be called simply "cat's eye." Anything else with the same effect must include the gemstone name with it. Yay, trivia! Sounds like we figured it out, at any rate. :D

[bladespark.livejournal.com]

Well, I'm not sure if they're abiding by that rule, or just don't have great English. This is the same seller that calls moonstone "white rainbow gem" and labradorite "black rainbow gem" and doesn't seem to know the proper name for either. I actually had no idea what I was going to be getting the first time I bought moonstones from this guy. But the auction was cheap enough I figured it'd probably be worth it whatever arrived.

[kainhighwind-dr.livejournal.com]

Yeah I wondered about that too, good point.

[bladespark.livejournal.com]

Well, I went and bid on it anyhow. Why not? They look pretty good, whatever they are!