Lithos
Opening the vault 0%
Mineral specimens & fine jewellery · Geneva, since 1987
Museum-grade minerals, chosen one stone at a time — and a jewellery line cut from the specimens we could not bear to sell.
Specimen I
Amethyst geode · Artigas
Still sealed
I · The opening
A hundred and thirty million years ago this stone was a gas bubble in cooling lava. Water seeped in, one drop per century, and left its silica behind. Nobody has ever seen the inside.
You will be the first.
II · The collection
Specimen ISiO₂ · Fe³⁺
Formed in a gas pocket of the Paraná basalt flows. The violet is trace iron, darkened by natural radiation over geological time — never heated, dyed or restored.
Specimen IISiO₂
Water-clear points with two phantoms and a rainbow fracture in the tallest terminal. Cleaned with water and a soft brush — no acid bath, no oil to hide the flaws.
Specimen IIIFeS₂
Cubes so square they were once thought to be carved by hand. The fine striations on every face are the record of the crystal growing, one atomic layer at a time.
Specimen IVCaCO₃ · aragonite
Cleoniceras, with original nacre over four-fifths of the shell. The suture lines — the walls between its chambers — are drawn in agate, like frost on a window.
III · The jewellery
When a specimen is too fractured to sell whole, our cutter in Idar-Oberstein takes what is left and sets it in platinum. Each piece is engraved inside with the number of the stone it came from.
From specimen I
Amethyst cabochon, 6.2 ct, in hand-forged platinum.
CHF 4,800
From specimen II
A single uncut quartz terminal, capped in brushed platinum.
CHF 2,650
From specimen III
Two natural 5 mm cubes, grown, not cut. Platinum claws.
CHF 1,450
IV · Provenance & ethics
We buy from thirty-one miners and families we know by name — never at auction. Each label carries the GPS locality, the date it came out of the ground and who found it.
No heat, no dye, no resin, no reassembly. If a specimen has ever been repaired, the label says so, in ink, on the front.
On average 41% of a sale price goes back to the mine. The trade norm is under five. The figure for every stone is printed on its certificate.
V · By appointment
Private viewings at Rue du Rhône 48, one party at a time, with the stones out of their cases and in your hands. Bring nothing but curiosity; we provide the gloves and the loupe.