Your guide to Citrine

Citrine

Citrine is a yellow variety of the mineral quartz. It is an alternative birthstone for the month of November.

Some stones are treated to improve the colouring, however only a trained specialist is usually able to tell the difference between treated and untreated stones.

Years ago, and still on occasion today this stone are wrongly referred to as gold topaz. It has nothing to do with the topaz family and is in fact a quartz and therefore of slightly lower quality than topaz. However it is relatively inexpensive to buy and therefore a popular choice by many. Natural yellow stones are in fact quite rare in nature (yellow sapphires and such command a very high price), so in its own way citrine is in fact a rather special gemstone.

This gemstone is thought to have many special powers including making men more handsome and intelligent and sterile women fertile. However many of these claims should be taken with a pinch of salt as at one time it was also claimed you could plunge your hand into boiling water and come out unharmed if a piece of topaz had been thrown into the water. Please do not try this at home, I can promise you- it doesn’t work.

It is possible for citrine to appear in the same stone as amethyst, giving a two tone yellow and purple effect. These stones are called ametrines.