Blue Goldstone

Here is a closeup of my Blue Goldstone Shinka Shinka Bracelet . This beautiful bracelet sparkles in the sunshine but still retains a dark hue. I wasn't exactly sure how this stone got its special glitter so I researched on google and found this information very interesting .

Blue Goldstone is a man-made stone and is made by adding Copper Salts to glass in a furnace. The heat "smelts" the Copper Salts back to Copper which then crystallize in the glass. A blue vegetable dye is added to give the blue colour. The Copper platelets formed this way are suspended in the glass and give it its characteristic glitter ! Goldstone is thought to have originated in Italy, and is still made there today by members of a single monastic community. Legend has it, that it was for a long time a very closely guarded secret how they made it, and even now the manufacture of the material remains the primary source of income for that monastery, even though Goldstone is also commercially made elsewhere these days. Other stories relate how Goldstone is thought to have been discovered by alchemists whilst on their lifelong quest to transmute base metals into gold.