NEWS BULLETIN: August 28, 2007
EXCLUSIVE

Blue Topaz: From Hot Rock to Cool Stone in Time for Christmas

By David Federman, Colored Stone Editor-in-Chief

Don’t cross blue topaz off your Xmas shopping list—that is, if you don’t mind stones with super-durable thin-film and diffusion color coatings rather than blued-through-and-through solid colors.

Several major retailers—large chains and department stores, among them—have decided to stock coated and diffused blue topaz this Christmas as an alternative to neutron-irradiated blue topaz. Ultra-popular reactor-colored topaz was whisked from many large-volume retailers’ shelves after the Nuclear Regulatory Commission warned the jewelry industry in late May that all such topaz must be purchased from licensed distributors.

After a meeting between the jewelry industry and the NRC on July 26th, the agency dangled the possibility of an exception to its rules for all existing blue topaz inventories. But there was a pre-condition. The NRC had first to be satisfied that all future supplies of neutron and—starting January 1, 2008—electron bombarded topaz would come through legitimate (meaning: licensed) channels.

Meeting this pre-condition isn’t proving easy. Although the NRC has received at least two applications for the licenses needed to run approved testing facilities that would certify topaz as safe-for-sale, there is as yet no word on when or whether any applicant will receive the go-ahead. In past conversations with the NRC, the agency has indicated that it would like several such testing centers to ensure fair competition and full capacity for the millions of carats of irradiated topaz imported each year.

In the mean time, high-volume retailers, which live as much in the future as the present, decided to seek an alternative to irradiated blue topaz.
That alternative: coated and diffused blue topaz.

The reasons for stocking this alternate are not simply impatience or frustration with the NRC for taking too much time to reach a decision. According to one buyer for a national chain, “There is a possibility that the media could grab hold of the blue topaz story and blow it up into a health scare. There’s no justification for this. But you know how squeamish the subject of irradiation makes people feel. ‘Mystic’ [coated] topaz has established itself as a popular stone. So we tested samples of leading coated blue topaz and found we could sell it with complete confidence in the durability of the treatment.”

Gemologists also feel reasonably confident about coated and diffused blue topaz, particularly coated aqua-blues from Azotic Coating Technologies in Rochester, Minnesota and diffused aqua-blues from Signity America in Austin, Texas. Although both companies have developed tough coatings, they are usually applied merely to the pavilion of the stone. So stones, once set, are pretty much placed out of harm’s way—or, at least, harm from normal wear and tear.

One lab that recently put coated topaz to the test was the American Gem Trade’s Gem testing Center in New York. According to Lore Kiefert, the lab’s director, “We tried scratching some stones and leaving them in acetone. The coating wasn’t affected.”

Colored Stone will publish a more detailed article on the leading types of coated blue topaz in its November-December 2007 issue

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Back to News & Updates for the full story on irradiated blue topaz.

Sept/Oct 2007 • Blue Topaz: The Ban That Never Was • Pearl Trade Faces Crisis • Chinese Pearl Farming Imperiled • Blue Topaz: From Hot Rock to Cool Stone This X-Mas • Topaz Troubles • NRC Exclusive Statement to CS on Irradiated Topaz • This Holiday Season May Not a Blue (Topaz) Christmas • The NRC's website