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Weight: 3.2 oz(1) |Sold Out| ; 5oz(2) |Sold Out| ; 9oz(3); and 1lb 10oz(4)

The name "quartz" comes from the German "Quarz", which is of Slavic origin (Czech miners called it křemen). Other sources insist the name is from the Saxon word "Querkluftertz", meaning cross-vein ore.

Quartz is the most common material identified as the mystical substance maban in Australian Aboriginal mythology. It is found regularly in passage tomb cemeteries in Europe in a burial context, eg. Newgrange or Carrowmore in Ireland. The Irish word for quartz is grian cloch, which means 'stone of the sun'.

Roman naturalist Pliny the Elder believed quartz to be water ice, permanently frozen after great lengths of time. (The word "crystal" comes from the Greek word for ice.) He supported this idea by saying that quartz is found near glaciers in the Alps, but not on volcanic mountains, and that large quartz crystals were fashioned into spheres to cool the hands. He also knew of the ability of quartz to split light into a spectrum. This idea persisted until at least the 1600s.

Nicolas Steno's study of quartz paved the way for modern crystallography. He discovered that no matter how distorted a quartz crystal, the long prism faces always made a perfect 60 degree angle.

Charles Sawyer invented the commercial quartz crystal manufacturing process in Cleveland, OH. This initiated the transition from mined and cut quartz for electrical appliances to manufactured quartz.

The quartz oscillator or resonator was first developed by Walter Guyton Cady in 1921. George Washington Pierce designed and patented quartz crystal oscillators in 1923. Warren Marrison created the first quartz oscillator clock based on the work of Cady and Pierce in 1927.

Quartz crystals are rotary polar (see rotary polarization) and have the ability to rotate the plane of polarization of light passing through them. They are also highly piezoelectric, becoming polarized with a negative charge on one end and a positive charge on the other when subjected to pressure. They will vibrate if an alternating electric current is applied to them. This proves them to be highly important in commerce for making pressure gauges, oscillators, resonators and watches.

Simply choose your very own crystals from the list below. Additional charges apply to the larger crystals.