Yeh, I read all that info in the gem books I bought on my first R&R back in the USA. I bought my stone from an old Greek stone cutter who at one time was a major influence in the world of gems, he'd been all over the world purchasing raw stones. He even gave me hints of where to buy gems at my next duty station, in Germany and where to buy raw stones in Brazil. You could mention almost any type of gem and he'd go to his vault and bring out bags containing thousands of carats of that type, all cut stones. It would literally blow your mind then all those beautiful gems would pour out. But with the Hiddenite, I thought I'd pull a joke on him and ask if he'd ever heard of Hiddenite, (considering the book said it was worth $10,000 a carat), he went to the huge vault and brought out a tiny box filled with cotton, containing five lovely stones, the largest was over 100 kts, the other 4 stones were 2 to 4 kts. Impressive is all I can say. By the way, in his workshop he had burlap bags stacked almost to the ceiling with raw matrix and three workers, who's job was just prepairing the stones for cutting. His wall was covered with jar after jar of raw stones, must have been a hundred different types, he even had rare red diamonds and true black diamonds, not Hematite...
Richard Ray
