What’s in a name?
If you could ask the humble zircon, the answer might be mistaken identity and decades of undeserved obscurity.
In the Victorian era, the peak of popularity for zircons, a mined mineral, colorless ones were regularly used as diamond alternatives and blue ones were particularly popular.
“Zircon can come in a wide range of colors — blue, yellow, brown, green and, rarely, a purplish-pink color,” said Nathan Renfro, senior manager of colored stone identification at the Gemological Institute of America. “They also have quite a high luster and a high degree of dispersion; as the light travels through the stone, it’s divided into its component colors, so you see
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