CITRINE VS YELLOW TOPAZ

CITRINE VS YELLOW TOPAZ

I am adding this article to knowledgebase because of several reasons. Search the above term and you will find many confused people asking questions on forums and google groups. I wanted to share some details and complete data on the same, so I decided to write about it.

MISINFORMATION:

Sellers often sell citrine as yellow topaz. Gemstones dealers are aware of the differences between the two and yet they keep on sharing this fabrication. The reasons are simple. Citrine is a cheap stone and it is entirely different from topaz.
Citrine is yellowish green variety of quartz stone. Ref http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citrine_(colour) It is heated to produce the deep champagne shade or some yellow shade and then sold as yellow topaz.

PRICE DIFFERENCES:

A finest piece of five carat citrine will hardly cost you Rs 25. But if you replace the same quality with five carat imperial topaz then we are talking about whopping 1800 US$ (INR 108000). So now you can understand why sellers sell citrine as yellow topaz. They sell citrine as topaz with a price hike. Yellow topaz is a silicate mineral of aluminium and fluorine. It is definitely not quartz or citrine. Ref http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_topaz

BIRTH STONES:

Please not that citrine is not a birth stone. Many sellers sell it as November birth stone. Indian sellers sell it as stone of Jupiter while the facts are different.

CLASSICAL REFERENCES:

First of all let me quote some classical references about topaz:

Vaidyanath (Describing Jupiter and its qualities) :

“Devacharya Saukhyavigyansagara subhdo devejya
jeevastubhaytovrajet purandaracharya dvipaat budhalayagramcharo guruh;
trishat varshani guruh  shakhadhipo jevah ; devta indrah; devjayasya cha Pushparaga”

 Mantreshwar. Grahbhedadhyaya, sloka 29:

“Manikayam Tarne, sudharyamamalam muktaphalam sheetgo,
Maheasya cha vidrum, markatam saumyasya garutmatam,
Devdayasya cha pushpragam suramatyasya vajram shane”

Vrihadjataka, Vrhat Shanita, Rajvallabha, rasratnasamuchya ,Shushrut Shanita , Garud Purana , mention gems related to planets.

 Manimala mentions different traits of “pushparagam”, sloka 388:

“Aapeetpanduruchirah pashanah pushpragamsangyastu”

Classics clearly mention that yellow topaz is the stone for Jupiter. So please note that yellow topaz is the actual stone for Jupiter.

CHEMICAL COMPARISON:

Topaz has following technical differences.

Here is a comparison:

 

Properties	Yellow Topaz(Pukhraj)	Citrine(Sold as topaz)
Crystal System	orthorhombic	trigonal crystal system
Crystal Habit	elongate, prismatic	Enantiomorphic
Hardness Scale	8.00	7 to 7 1/2
Refractive Index (RI)	1.610 to 1.630	1.550.
Specific gravity (SG)	3.54	2.6 – 2.7
Gem Color	Yellow	Yellow
Chemical Composition	Al2SiO4(F,OH)2	SiO2

 

REFERENCES:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citrine_(colour)
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_topaz
• Vaidyanath (Describing Jupiter and its qualities) :
• Mantreshwar. Grahbhedadhyaya, sloka 29:
• Manimala mentions different traits of “pushparagam”, sloka 388: