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J. P. Morgan
 

Pink Emeralds, the pink gemstone variety of beryl termed amongst other names in the mineral world as Morganite, was named for John Pierpont Morgan (1837-1913), better known in his day as J.P. Morgan. He was one of America's great financiers and bankers, the third richest man in the country in his day (only John D. Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie surpassed him), and he was a philanthropist on a grand scale. It has been said that, at their peak, the Morgan and Rockefeller interests controlled some $20 billion in corporate assets, about one-fifth of the total national wealth! So, when Mr. Morgan purchased the mineral collection of Clarence Sweet Bement (1846-1923) in 1900 for the sum of $100,000 (a huge amount for ordinary people of those days) it was "small change" for him. He then, through the efforts of George Frederick Kunz (1856-1932) donated what is said to be "the finest collection of minerals ever made" to the American Museum of Natural History.

      
J. P. Morgan

The collection today is displayed at the Morgan Memorial Hall of Minerals at this World Class Museum in New York City that also is home to one of the greatest Pink Emerald statues of all time, a beautiful 2500 carat Chinese Goddess of Immortality, carved of a precious pink rough from Madagascar. This statue, although exquisite, is mistakenly credited in the Museum book as being the largest carved Pink Emerald in the world. This global honor and top position is more accurately attributable and held by Pinkerton, the German carved 5325 carat porcine of Manfred Wild, of the great European gem center of Idar Oberstein, Germany. "Pinky" also appeared in a colored picture on the front cover of National Jeweler Magazine in June 1993.

Both Kunz and Morgan had other joint ventures in the gem world. The California find of Pink Emeralds was actually attributed to geologist George Kunz who re-named it Morganite at the time after his friend and backer J. P. Morgan. Kunz also found a mineral he named Kunzite in California 13 years earlier, while he worked for and was funded at the time by financier J. Pierpont Morgan. The story goes that up until the Morganite find, all minerals were usually given the name of their "finders" rather than the name of someone else. Morgan was said to be very upset when Kunz named Kunzite after himself because Morgan felt he had paid for the Kunzite exploration and so he should have been given the credit for its discovery instead of his employee George Kunz.

J. P. Morgan was living in New York City and Old Brookville, New York at the time and had just finished construction of his own private country club, later called Nassau Country Club, in Glen Cove, New York on Long Island. This was over 2200 miles from where his friend Kunz had just unearthed his second mineral find in North America. Remembering Morgan's displeasure over the naming of Kunzite 13 years earlier, Kunz gave a name to what was thought to be a new mineral find and called it MORGANITE after his employer, J.P. Morgan. Kunz sent a telegram to Morgan announcing the name of the new discovery. Morgan was very please with his new found chance at immortality by having a stone named after him. This mineral "naming" became the beginning of a very large controversy in the mineral world at the time. First, it was felt by many that this really wasn't the first find of Pink Beryllium-Aluminum Silicate in the world and second, Morgan wasn't even the one who found it in North America to begin with, so why should he have his name so prominently attached to its discovery? It is probably fair to assume the name Morganite will continue to prevail for generations to come as the mineral name for the host rock of the faceted precious jewelry gemstone known as "Pink Emerald".

The Pink Emerald Company