This lovely little piece of charoite, or "charyte" as it's known in Russia, came from a lovely gentleman and his son who show up once a year to our big gem and mineral show with some of the most incredible material. Their showroom is always one where I have the drool cloth ready to go and hope that I enough cash so I can purchase lots of goodies.

Charoite is found near the Chary River, thus its original name of charyte (we Yanks seem to have the need to add an extra vowel in now and then...). Not only is the material gorgeous, but this type where it has lots of oddball crystals going every which way makes it a challenge to cut properly and keep those cool fibrous crystals from popping out and leaving holes.

~oldbob wasn't fond of cutting the material at the time I bought this and so I had to buy the stone from my Russian friend as a finished cabochon. However, the stone's beauty and demand for it changed ~oldbob's mind - and now I get to look forward to stones from him to play with!

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Charoite (charyte); sterling silver square and half-round wire