Large faceted citrine, cut by cut and carat by carat. Every stone photographed as it is, priced live, shipped worldwide tracked and insured.

Buy Large Faceted Citrine Gemstones Online: Heart, Oval and Trillion Cuts from 27 to 40.5 Carats

Citrine is the yellow to orange variety of quartz, coloured by traces of iron and hard enough at Mohs 7 to take a crisp, glassy polish. Because clean quartz rough comes out of the ground in large pieces, citrine can be faceted at statement weights without compromise. This collection is deliberately small, a case of big stones rather than a long aisle: 5 faceted citrines in heart, oval and trillion cuts, running from 27 to 40.5 carats. Every listing is the exact stone you receive, photographed individually with the carat weight stated. Prices update live, we have dealt in gems since 1961, and every order ships worldwide, tracked and insured.

What citrine is, and why the natural question matters

Citrine is quartz, the same species as rock crystal and amethyst, in the variety that runs from pale straw yellow through gold to deep orange. The colour comes from traces of iron held in a crystal that is otherwise the most ordinary mineral on earth. That ordinariness is the point: quartz is tough, stable, takes a hard bright polish and costs little enough per carat that a genuinely large stone remains within reach.

The question that separates one yellow stone from another is history. Natural, unheated citrine is uncommon, and the word citrine on a label tells you nothing about how the colour arose. Astro Gallery of Gems has sold minerals and gems from New York since 1961, and the habit that survives that long is a simple one: describe the stone plainly and let it argue for itself.

Where the colour comes from, and the honest answer on heat

Iron colours citrine. In natural stones, iron in the right state, warmed gently over geological time, brings the crystal out of the ground already yellow. That combination is rare, which is why most of the citrine in commerce began life as something else.

The something else is amethyst. Heat amethyst past a few hundred degrees and the purple gives way to yellow and orange. The result is permanent, stable in daylight and accepted throughout the trade, and there is nothing wrong with owning a heated stone. There is something wrong with not being told. An honest seller says which is which, so each listing states what we know about a stone's origin and treatment. If a listing leaves your question open, email us before you buy and we will answer plainly.

Colour carries its own vocabulary. Pale lemon yellows are typical of unheated material, while strong saturated orange usually signals heat. The deep orange to orange red end of the range carries the trade name Madeira, after the wine, and it commands attention in any cut.

Why large clean citrine exists at all

Most gem species make you choose between size and clarity. Quartz does not, because quartz is one of the commonest minerals in the crust and grows wherever silica rich fluid finds an open space: veins, pockets and the basalt cavities that produce the great amethyst geodes of Brazil and Uruguay. Crystals in those spaces have room, and room makes size.

A cutter working sapphire hunts for a clean area measured in millimetres. A cutter working quartz can saw through kilograms of rough, drop every flawed zone on the floor and still keep a flawless block big enough for a 40 carat stone. That is why the quartz family is the traditional gateway to statement carats, and why the crystals in points and the specimens in minerals are close cousins of everything in this case.

How to read a faceted citrine listing

Four facts do the work. Carat first: a carat is a unit of weight, one fifth of a gram, so the 36.5 carat oval here weighs 7.3 grams in the hand. Cut second, meaning the shape and the facet arrangement, which between them decide how the stone handles light. Colour third, described honestly from pale yellow to Madeira orange rather than flattered by lighting. Clarity fourth: a stone with no inclusions visible to the naked eye is called eye clean, worth saying explicitly at these sizes, because a flaw you would forgive in a two carat stone becomes scenery in a thirty carat one.

The listing format is the same across our faceted stone room: exact stone photographed, weight stated, price live on the page. You can see it running at scale in cut gemstones and in the amber cut gemstones, and it holds here because at statement weights substitutions are unthinkable. You buy the stone in the photograph or you do not buy.

Heart, oval and trillion, and what each cut does with light

The case holds three shapes. The heart is a modified brilliant with a cleft cut into the crown and a point below, the most demanding of the three because its two lobes must mirror each other exactly, and the eye forgives nothing in a heart. Ours is cut at 30 carats, a weight at which the shape stops being sentimental and becomes architectural.

The oval is the workhorse of big gems. It spreads face up area generously, sits well in almost any setting and returns light evenly, with one caveat worth knowing: ovals can show a bow tie, a soft dark band across the middle, and a good cutter keeps it faint. The ovals here weigh 36.5 and 40.5 carats, the largest stones in the case.

The trillion is the triangular brilliant: three sides and three corners carrying brilliant style facets that fire short, sharp flashes off the long edges. Trillions read lively even at rest and face up large for their weight. The trillions here weigh 27 and 36.5 carats.

Windowing, and how to judge a big stone from photographs

Cut quality in a faceted stone is judged on three things: symmetry, brilliance and the absence of a window. Symmetry you check face on, with the outline even and the facets meeting where they should. Brilliance is the share of light the stone returns to your eye rather than losing out of the back. The window is where big stones most often fail: a cutter saving weight leaves the pavilion shallow, light passes straight through instead of reflecting, and the centre becomes a pale, see through patch the size of the compromise.

Photographs will tell you, if they are honest. Look at the centre of the stone face up: colour and fire should reach the middle, not just the rim. A stone photographed over pattern or over a hand shows a window instantly, because you can read what sits behind it. We photograph every stone as it is; ask for a shot at an angle, over print or against a ruler and we will take it before you commit.

A live sample of what is in the case right now

The table is drawn straight from the collection rather than typed by hand. The middle column lifts the cut and carat note from each listing title, and the price renders live from the store. Click any title for the full photographs of that exact stone.

Then browse all 5 stones side by side and compare cut against cut, colour against colour. If you would like any of them photographed together under one light for scale, ask and we will shoot it.

What a 30 carat citrine becomes

A stone at this weight has three natural futures. The first is a pendant, the easiest home for a big gem, because the collarbone carries weight a finger would notice: even the 40.5 carat oval comes to about eight grams, a weight a decent chain carries without complaint. Bezel it in gold or silver and it becomes the entire argument of a necklace; the pieces in gems and jewelry and silver jewelry show the register it lives in.

The second is a cocktail ring, an event rather than an accessory, best built with a protective bezel or v prongs over any corner. Quartz at Mohs 7 wears well, though a ring this size is for evenings rather than gardening, and our jewelry room sets the context. The third future is no setting at all: collectors keep faceted quartz unset, in a stand or a case, a serious object in the tradition of the showcase pieces in the vault and the hall of fame. A stone like this also answers the hardest brief in gifts: the person who owns everything rarely owns a stone they can hold up to a window.

Citrine beside amethyst, one quartz family

Purple and orange quartz are the same species with different histories. In amethyst, iron and natural irradiation build the purple; warm that crystal and the colour walks through yellow into orange, which is the heat story again, run by the earth or by an oven. Some crystals carry both colours at once, and the trade sells those as ametrine.

For a collector, the pairing is the point. A deep citrine beside a deep amethyst is one mineral demonstrating its range, and because both varieties come from generous rough, both can be owned at weights no sapphire buyer could contemplate. The two collections are cut to be compared.

Care of a faceted quartz stone

Quartz sits at 7 on the Mohs scale, hard enough for daily handling and a lasting polish, soft enough to be scratched by topaz, sapphire and diamond, so store a faceted citrine apart from harder gems rather than loose in a shared box. Clean it with warm water, a drop of mild soap and a soft brush, then dry it with a cloth; that does everything an ultrasonic tank does with none of the risk to an included stone. Keep it away from sustained strong heat and out of weeks of direct sun, since heat is what moves quartz colour in the first place.

Ordering is the simple part. The stone in the photograph is the stone in the box, with its weight stated and its price live on the product page. Astro Gallery of Gems has weighed, packed and shipped stones from New York since 1961, and every order travels worldwide, fully tracked and insured, with import duties set by the destination country. Read the returns policy before ordering, and the about us page for the background on who you are buying from.

These terms recur across the listings in this case.

Questions buyers ask before ordering a large citrine

These arrive most often by email. If yours is not covered, write to customerservice@astrogallery.com and a specialist will answer, usually with photographs.

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