Alabama has some of the most iron rich soil in the world. You can literally squeeze the rust out of the mud. Almost every town of any significance has a mine, quarry, smelt, furnace, or ancient rolling mill dating back to the Civil War. And, a bi-product of producing iron with our own locally quarried limestone, is a beautiful (almost florescent) green slag, which to a layman looks very much like a natural green glass which has gained popularity in the recent years.
For some strange reason I seem to attract the most lovable of the weirdest of folks. My studio is a corner of the only real bead shop in our state, which brings folks in from other states to shop. Lora, my girlfriend, owns and operates the bead shop, and I just do my own thing in a glassed in corner. Yep, I am the jeweler in the aquarium, lol. It even has a sign posted, “Don’t feed the artist.” I would like to also point out that I am not a gemologist. I am not a geologist. In fact geology was the only class I struggled with in college. But, being in a bead shop, we get lots of interesting characters that travel through selling beads, gems, rocks, and sometimes false hopes. And, I have picked up on a few things.
A few years ago, we had a guy come in. He was Middle Eastern and said that he was just in from Mexico, and he was doing his best to pretend to have a Hispanic accent. He wanted to sell me some moldavite. I have had some experience with glass, having dabbled with lampworking, and I also knew that moldavite was a variation of natural glass. It is commonly believed that it was formed after an extraterrestrial impact drove minerals into the air in molten form, a huge impact. But, this “moldavite” had a suspiciously familiar look to it. I compared it to some straw cast silver that I had. The guy was getting nervous and edgy. I put on my magnifiers and saw that they had similar shapes, and I even saw bits of straw still in the chunks. Before I could say anything else, he grabbed his “stones” and walked out the door. So, I took that as verification that it was a melted Mountain Dew bottle poured over straw. Once again, I may have been wrong. I do have a nice selection of Germanic moldavite from very reputable dealers, but I am not GIA certified at all. Usually I don’t care about the investment value of stones, but I don’t want to claim something is one thing and it is actually something else.
Very recently, Lora gives me a call telling me that there is someone else wanting to sell me moldavite. I asked her how much, and with a brief pause on the phone to relay the info, she tells me that he needs to talk to me in person.
“Hmmm, is he one of your regular gemstone or bead vendors?”
“No, I don’t know him, but he refuses to sell it to me. He wants to talk to you.”
“OK, tell him to come back in a few hours.”
Lora gave me the “eye of warning” as I walked through the door. One of the guys was about 18 and was dressed like Emenem. The other was a dead-on look alike of Bob Marley. I don’t usually judge books by there cover, but I sensed an unusual bit of weirdness had walked into my lair. If they had come in looking for wire or rough gems for some extreme hippie wire wrapping, I would have been a little more comfortable.
Birmingham, Alabama, has been on the CIA’s most dangerous cities in the world list since the 60’s. And, I have had to disarm several would-be muggers. And, I have given up several wallets. I don’t carry a weapon, because I’d rather live without my wallet or with a wound than to live with killing on my conscience. So, needless to say I approached these gentlemen as carefully as possible.
They had an old Dallas Cowboy’s gym bag full of rocks. And, I immediately recognized the green rocks as slag from iron pours that I used to pick-up along railroad tracks of my youth. Alabama has very distinctive slag. Back when they were building the railways through the state and extending them during the Civil War, this slag was poured into the railway beds as ballast. Now, it works its way up through the denser limestone gravel, like fist-sized chunks growing up from the gravel.
Bob Marley started in with a very well rehearsed speech about Alabama moldavite. I just sat down and listened respectfully to his rap about how he has struggled getting the University of Mississippi to give him certification that the green slag before me was moldavite. He showed me paper after paper showing that this was in fact not moldavite. Then he pulls out a hand-written letter. The letter pronounced that this was in fact moldavite that was formed deep within the earth and had pushed its way up; signed with a name I couldn’t read nor would recognize. Bob explained to me that his kids had been harvesting this moldavite for him for years. He went on to say that gemstones have energy. They radiate this energy, and with this amount of energy you could power cars and houses. Bob stated that he had actually seen with his own eyes someone conjure someone from the dead. I just politely asked if it was a Union spirit or a Confederate spirit. Bob just gave me a puzzled look. Emenem just sat staring at his expensive tennis shoes.
“Bob,” I said, “did you find this next to a railroad track?”
You’d have thought that I had just read his mind and told him his mother’s maiden name. And, I tried as respectfully as possible to explain the origins of the rocks in his hands, and how moldavite is actually formed.
A very big grin crossed his face, and he dug down to the bottom of the Gym bag, pulling out a very large specimen. And, he explained that this piece was his retirement investment. It was a very large green slag specimen that still had some rusty iron deposits and limestone gravel stuck to it. It did look very natural, if you weren’t aware of what you were looking at. He was obviously very far from retirement.
Bob explained that this specimen demonstrates how moldavite is formed from iron and limestone. This very piece was germination in process between these two materials as it formed into moldavite. I wasn’t sure if he was truly that ignorant of the subject, maybe brainwashed by some other charlatan, which would be forgivable. Or, was he working this hard to consciously swindle me? I’m pretty sure that I look as stupid as one might assume, but this guy seemed to have had his share of some very interesting Kool-Aid.
I thanked the gentlemen for giving me their time, and out of curiosity I asked them their price. Bob immediately told me $20 a carat. I laughed and asked them how many carats they thought that the baseball sized chunk weighed. Bob quizzically replied, “Weighed? This is 24 carat moldavite.”
I chuckled, and I pulled out my scales to show him the difference in carats and karats. And, I explained that I appreciated his sales pitch. But, that I would gladly give him $20 for the 3 pound chunk of “moldavite.” This would give him gas money to get away from me. But, I also explained that I did not believe for one minute that this was moldavite. But, it would be nice to have for my display case of gems and minerals, showing off the indigenous slag. I figured $20 would cover how much I would have spent on gas and time collecting it myself at the railroad bed down the road.
I handed him a $20 bill, and as they were walking out the door Emenem asked me if I was interested in some Alabama Navajo arrowheads, LOL.
