Lapis Lazuli

Is happy to announce that we have, on consignment, HIGH GRADE Lapis Lazuli, direct from Afghanistan. This Lapis Lazuli was purchased in the Afghan street markets in person, and brought back directly to the states. This is a LIMITED SUPPLY, when it's gone, it's gone. This high grade lapis will make some quality cabochons. We have Slabs and Cabochons. Order now before it's gone.

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SLABS

Very nice slab of AA grade Lapis Lazuli, it measures 80mm x 80mm x 6mm. It's great thickness for cabochons.
Price $87.28

This Lapis Lazuli Slab measures 110mm x 85mm x 10mm. Really nice slab, will many many nice cabs. Grade AA.
Price $109.28

Top Grade AAA Lapis Lazuli Slab. A very thick slab, good and solid, and heavy. Measures 90mm x 80mm x 15mm. Doesn't get much better than this.
Price $179.56

Beautiful Slab of Lapis Lazuli, This is Grade AAA. Will make nice thick cabs. Measures 80mm x 70mm x 8mm. Great Blue Color.
Price $98.36

This Lapsi Lazuli slab is a great thickness for cabochons. It is a wonderful blue, with pyrite mixed in. Measures 90mm x 80mm x 6mm. Grade AA
Price $82.67

Very beautiful, thick and large slab of Lapis Lazuli. Grade AA. Measures 115mm x 90mm x 13mm.
Price $156.27

This Lapis Lazuli Slab is probably the best one of the bunch. It's Grade AAA, and it's thick. This slab measures 82mm x 87mm x 22mm. Top Notch.

Price $224.88

Great cabbing slab of Lapis Lazuli. Grade AA. This slab measures 80mm x 75mm x 8mm

Price $79.56

CABOCHONS

Grade AAA Lapis Lazuli Cab, in a nice triangle pendant shape.

Price $75.00

Nice small, stylish Lapis Lazuli Cabochon. This is ready for your jewelry projects. Beautiful Cab!

Price $55.00

Great cabochon of Lapis Lazuli just waiting for your projects. Nice Grade AAA cabochon.

Price $65.00

All About Lapis Lazuli

DESCRIPTION: Most lapis lazuli comprises a crystalline aggregate made up largely of blue lazurite (a mineral of the sodalite group), plus noteworthy amounts of macroscopic white calcite and pyrite grains. Some lapis lazuli contains one or more of the other minerals of the sodalite group -- hauyne, nosean, and sodalite per se -- along with or in lieu of the lazurite. In addition, some lapis lazuli also contains minor amounts of phlogopite mica, diopside, amphibole, mica, etc., each of which may or may not be macroscopically discernible. The lapis lazuli widely considered to be of highest quality contains relatively small, rather evenly distributed pyrite grains and relatively small percentages of or no calcite. Some lapis lazuli appears roughly color-laminated in different shades of blue.
Properties of lazurite follow:
    Colors - typically azure- to deep blue, rarely purplish or greenish blue
    H. 5-6
    S.G. 2.38-2.95
    Light transmission - typically subtranslucent to opaque, but some is translucent in thin fragments
    Luster - vitreous, waxy or dull
    Miscellany - when the blue constituent, whatever sodalite mineral it is, is attacked by HNO₃ (nitric acid), H₂S, which has the odor of rotten eggs, evolves.

OTHER NAMES:

Afghanistan lapis - high quality lapis lazuli from Ladjward-jui, a stream in Badakhshan, northeastern Afghanistan. Other names indicating mideastern sources or markets have also been applied to this lapis lazuli -- e.g., Armenian stone, Badakhshan lapis, Iranian lapis, Landward-jui, Oriental lapis and Persian lapis.
Azure stone - an alternative name sometimes given lapis lazuli.
Blue rock - another name for lapis lazuli.
Chilean lapis - pale to light blue lapis lazuli, typically veined with white or gray mineral matter (e.g., calcite), some of which is green-tinged or spotted, from Chile.
Denim lapis lazuli - mottled or variegated Afghanistan lapis lazuli the color of which resembles faded denim (Koivula, Kammerling and Fritsch, 1993). Lapis lazuli has been described as "denim blue" in many recent advertisements, apparently as a sign of the times, our "Levi age" -- one has to wonder, "What next (?)".
Heaven stone - see paragraph seven under the REMARKS subheading.
Huinzo - a Peruvian synonym for lapis lazuli.
Lapis - Lapis, by itself, is frequently used in lieu of the binomial, and correct(!!), designation lapis lazuli.
Lapis matrix - term sometimes applied to lapis lazuli that contains prominent patches of calcite and also to lapis lazuli with diverse other rock materials filling cracks (etc.) within it.
Russian lapis - inferior lapis lazuli from near Lake Baikal.
Siberian lapis - this lapis lazuli, from an area south of Irkutsk, is apparently the same rock as that called Russian lapis.

USES: Jewelry, carvings, ... etc. In addition, lapis lazuli, along with other gemrocks such as malachite, rhodochrosite and sugilite, has been used in mosaics and high quality intarsias (gemstone inlays) used in pendants, box panels, etc.; these uses have noteworthy ancient precedents -- e.g., lapis lazuli, along with nacre, was used in marquetry found in an ancient tomb in Ur, Chaldea (now southern Iraq). -- See the illustrations at the top of the plate opposite page 64 in Da Cunha (1989).

OCCURRENCES: Diverse -- e.g., as veins, layers or lenses in so-called contact metamorphosed impure calcareous and/or dolomitic rocks with or without associated evaporite units; at least some lapis lazuli appears to have been formed primarily in response to thermal metamorphism accompanied by little, if any, hydrothermal and/or pneumatolytic activity.

NOTEWORTHY LOCALITIES: Along the Kokcha River, near Sar-e-Sang, Badakhshan Province, Afghanistan; near Sludyanka on Lake Baikal, Siberia, Russia; in eastern Chile, near the Argentina border, approximately 45 miles northeast of Illapel, State of Coquimbo; near Lake Harbor, southern Baffin Island, Canada; in San Bernardino County, California; and near the timberline of North Italian Mountain, of the Sawatch Range of the Rockies, approximately 35 miles northeast of Gunnison, Gunnison County, Colorado. Shigley et al. (2000) tabulate localities and pertinent references for localities from which lapis lazuli was recovered during the 1990s.

Lapis lazuli from Afghanistan has long been considered to set the quality standard. Some connoisseurs, however, consider certain lapis lazuli from other localities to be of nearly, if not truly, equal quality -- e.g., some lapis lazuli mined in the Coquimbo Region or the Chilean Andes since the early 1900s is considered virtually as good as the so-called top-grade Afghanistan material. -- This lapis lazuli is, by the way, extremely interesting mineralogically; it is composed largely of blue lazurite, with noteworthy calcite, diopside, haüyne, pyrite, scapolite, and wollastonite along with trace amounts of afghanite, allanite, arsenopyrite, chalcopyrite, epidote, plagioclase feldspar, pyrrhotite, siderite, sodalite and tremolite as accessory minerals -- (see Coenraads and deBon, 2000). (from http://www.cst.cmich.edu/users/dietr1rv/lapis.htm )

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