Synthetic Quartz (ex Bell Telephone Laboratories)

Item Description

A very impressive old time synthetic Quartz crystal from Bell Laboratories. This piece is what I could call a tremendous combination of scientific achievement and U.S. technological history. This piece is one of the extremely rare, early Synthetic Quartz crystal specimens. It is actually notably eye-catching and very well-preserved without any damage, and it's completely INTACT, and not sliced up, which is exceedingly rare in my experience. The crystal has tremendous WATER-CLEAR clarity, along with a combination of beautifully smooth and notably scalloped faces. These specimens are incredibly hard to find on the market in ANY capacity as they are several decades old! If you collect Quartz, U.S. specimen, pieces of American history or just unique oddities, don't miss out on this fantastic and important large cabinet display specimen. Weight is 140 grams.

A brief history of this material: By the 1960s, fine quality Quartz crystals had become an essential part of everyday communications, both civilian and military needs. Precision ground Quartz crystal plates were used in filters, oscillators, and frequency standard circuits in almost all forms of long distance communications. But the high cost and rarity of high quality optic grade Quartz crystals made them a hard commodity to find, most natural crystals contained impurities that made them unsuitable for manufacturing Quartz crystal plates. In 1946, in an attempt to reduce waste and provide a pure source of Quartz crystals, the Bell Telephone Laboratories started experimenting with growing synthetic / artificial Quartz crystals.  A process was developed where a small fragment of Quartz is immersed in an alkaline solution in a tightly closed vessel.   Under immense heat and pressure (which measured over ten tons per square inch and over 700 degrees Fahrenheit!), the Quartz fragment would dissolve.  The liquid would flow by convection to a growing zone where the Quartz would leave the solution and deposit itself on specially designed seed plates. By 1956, the process had been perfected.  Now Western Electric Company and Bell Labs were growing crystals on a large scale.  Very thin cut seed plates were placed into the vessels along with small pieces of natural Quartz and the alkaline solution to grow the synthetic crystals. 

This piece comes to us from the legendary Ron Romanella (February 28, 1932 - October 24, 2022), a well-known gem and mineral dealer from New York City. He studied mineralogy at Columbia School of Mines, and he was mentored by Dr. Frederick Pough of the American Museum of Natural History, and learned about the business side from well-known mineral dealers Hugh Ford and Maurice Hammoneau. Ron himself was a mentor to other successful East Coast mineral dealers such as Larry Conklin, Herb Obodda and even employed Dave Wilber for a time. He largely transitioned out of selling minerals as his business focused more on gems for the last few decades, and his sons Michael and Jerry have been running the family business in Scottsdale for many years now. With that said, Ron was one of the great powerhouse mineral dealers in the US for many years, offering fine quality specimens and gem crystals from classic and contemporary localities. Among his top achievements, is that Ron is credited with importing the first known crystals of Tanzanite into the US in the 1960s.