Australian Jeweller June 2001 By Suzanne Male
Until recently no one could work out exactly what it was, but now the Australian Pittado as cemented itself a place in the international gemstone inventory.
It wasn’t the most scientific way of discovering the world’s newest gem. A geologist’s assistant was relieving himself following a long day in the field searching for signs of diamond deposits in the Western Australian desert about five years ago. “He managed to wash some of the dirt off the top of the stone,” uncovering the strange green mineral, tells Diamond Rose NL general manager Sholom Feldman, explaining with a laugh, well, out in the middle of the outback there’s not quite the facilities that a normal person has.”
Lucky really, since the accidental discovery has added a new dimension to Diamond Rose’s diamond exploration and gemstone mining. “Our company has been mining coloured gemstones for years in Australia’s outback, but ironically the one that we exclusively hold we never intended to find,” says Feldman, who with mother and Diamond Rose executive director, Pnina Feldman, exhibited the stone at the ICA trade fair in Sydney last month.
Discovering the stone was the easy part. Finding out exactly what the stone was presented a bigger problem. Diamond Rose had the stone analysed by several different experts but the experts could not agree on its definition. “The stone threw even the most experienced gemologists off balance.” Feldman says. “We had people looking at it and saying that’s chrysoprase, that’s nephrite, no that’s a jade. All different types, but nobody really knew what it was.”
In the end, Diamond Rose has a university do a petrological study and the consensus was this stone was like no other. It was identified as quartz, coloured by chromium fuchsite. “Therefore, it is really a gemstone in its own right, as under microscopic analysis, one can clearly observe its unique, non fibrous crystalline structure,” Feldman says. “But the way that all of that comes together is quite unique because it doesn’t look like anything else as well. It doesn’t look like a lot of other stones. So we were sort of at a loss.”
Then, of course, the new gemstone needed a name. No problem. Just so happens the Bible has a spare one. Like the gemologists who couldn’t positively identify the stone, the Bible has a similar gemstone quandary. Commentators disagree on the type of stone the Bible is talking about when it refers to the Pittado, the second and green gemstone on the High Priest of Israel’s breastplate.
As devout Jews, the Feldmans knew the passage in the Bible and the debate that has surrounded it and decided Pittado was an ideal name for their new green gem.
The Pittado, which come in a range of green colours, has already caused a rush after appearing on the Home Shopping Network in the
And it looks like Diamond Rose’s success is not about to end. “We think we’re pretty close to another mayor diamond find,” in the
The should please Diamond Rose’s high caliber partners BHP and DeBeers, who are already involved in Diamond Rose’s diamond exploration in two major projects. “They’re putting in money, could be in the tens of millions of dollars,” Pnina Feldman explained, “depending {on the projects’ progress}, putting in more as the project goes.”