Amethyst

Amethyst

Amethyst is the clear purple, mauve or violet form of the mineral quartz. As such it is related to citrine which is the yellow form of quartz, and also to rock crystal which is the colourless variety.

What's in a Name?
Amethyst gets its name from a Greek word amethustos meaning "not drunken", as it was believed to protect against intoxication by alcohol.It would be interesting to test this ancient theory whilst being breath-tested, but don't cite us in your defence.

Too Cheap?

One thing about amethyst that we find very strange is that some people complain about its low price. Compared with diamond, ruby, emerald and sapphire, it is true that amethyst is inexpensive, particularly in lower qualities. Even in very high qualities, amethyst is still not expensive, which makes it a veritable bargain among gemstones. We cannot understand why it is necessary for a gemstone to be rare and valuable before people can appreciate its beauty, even though we list rarity and value among the attributes of gemstones on our Gemstone Characteristics page. In fact, high quality amethysts still add up to a lot of pounds. This also seems to surprise some folk. Just because some amethysts are cheap, they assume this must be the case for all amethysts. Also because some amethysts are cheap, other people don't want to own even a high quality attractive amethyst, possibly because their friends may regard amethysts as not valuable. It's a bit like refusing to accept a Picasso because the artist is offering to give it to you for nothing, instead of asking a couple of million pounds for it.In our experience there are, sadly, many people who can only judge quality by its price tag. Often these same people spend half their life searching around for the best deal, but fail to see it when they fall over it.