In February 1994 Dr. Christopher W. Hartnett, Chairman and President of USA Gems, Inc. based in Fairfield, Iowa had a press conference and announced to the world from Tucson, Arizona at the American Gem Trade Association (AGTA) Annual February Gem Show, that his company over the previous 3 years, had purchase the majority of all the available Pink Emeralds in the world. Dr. Hartnett was now offering these rare gems for sale on a wholesale basis to Jewelers and Retailers but he put everyone on notice that year that he was no longer going to use the old mineral names associated with this gemstone but instead insisted that the proper gemological and marketing name for this gemstone was "PINK EMERALD", especially since the gem was indeed Beryllium-Aluminum Silicate, just like its brother green emerald.

Many of the Jewelry Trade Magazines had already reported on rumors of Dr. Hartnett's Pink Emerald global buying trip "blitzes" in Brazil, New York, Hong Kong, Bangkok, Germany and Japan, where he, along with 6 other of his employees would descend upon a city and buy practically every Pink Emerald available on the market in that local within a 48 hour period.

People at times resist change, even when that change is better for the situation in the long run. Why? Well the answer is complicated but mostly because "life itself" at times, can be painful so we tend to cling to traditions of the past even if they aren't valid traditions, in the hope that by doing so we will hold on to that which is good in life. When we feel strong, happy and full inside, change isn't a threat because that goodness we are trying to hold on to by being inflexible is already there within us so, change comes easier without effort.

After Dr. Hartnett announced he was sticking to the name Pink Emerald rather than the mineral names for Pink Beryllium-Aluminum Silicate, many old time gem dealers went up in arms against him. The change for some of them was painful. One lady actually physically attacked one of the employees of USA Gems, Inc. behind the trade booth where they were selling Pink Emeralds at the AGTA Gem Show in Tucson because she felt Hartnett and his team had no business calling the gemstones they were selling Pink Emeralds and wanted them to keep the old mineral name she was use to using. As absurd as this may sound, this is a true story. The woman came unglued and just really resisted this change for some reason. For the most part, the majority of gem dealers realized that calling Pink Beryllium-Aluminum Silicate "Pink Emerald" was a much better marketing term for promoting and selling the stone, just like "Ruby" is a much better marketing name than its mineral name "red corundum".

A few green Emerald dealers also got upset at this time. After all, the year before 1993 at the Tucson Gem Show they had to accept the fact that one of the AGTA Board of Directors, Ray Zajicek changed the name of red Beryllium-Aluminum Silicate (Bixbite) to Red Emerald. It was hard for some the green emerald dealers to move over and share the spot light they had enjoy for so long with Red Emerald but they did it because it was good for business and Ray also was a well known and respected Green Emerald dealer as well. A few of these green Emerald dealers got upset and screamed foul play and ran to the fair and respected then President of the AGTA, Owen Bordelon and said basically that enough was enough and they had to share the term Emerald with the Red Emerald people last year but they had no intention of moving over even more and sharing the spot light now with the Pink Emerald people as well this year. Dr. Hartnett was then asked by the AGTA to stop using the term Pink Emerald for Pink Beryllium-Aluminum Silicate even though Red Beryllium-Aluminum Silicate was allowed to use the term Red Emerald and the green Beryllium-Aluminum Silicate people were allowed to continue using the term Green Emerald. He complied with their request out of respect for the AGTA organization which he had in a small way helped start many years earlier in 1980 with a group of other gem dealers at a restaurant in Tucson that all believed in the necessity for and the virtues of "change" in order to successfully market colored gemstones.

This was going to be one heck of a crazy precedent that the American Gem Trade Association was about to set. Did they have a right or better yet, did they have a valid a basis for making this emotional and reactive decision? After all, white carbon was allowed to be called Diamond and red carbon was allowed to be called Red Diamond and green carbon was allowed to be called Green Diamond and pink corundum was allowed to be called Pink Sapphire and purple corundum was allowed to be called Purple Sapphire and yellow corundum was allowed to be called Yellow Sapphire and blue corundum was allowed to be called Blue Sapphire BUT because of these few green Beryllium-Aluminum Silicate dealers, pink Beryllium-Aluminum Silicate wasn't going to be allowed to be called PINK EMERALD?

Dr. Hartnett, a gemologist and third generation gem dealer, sued the AGTA for $10 million for restraint of trade.

By the 1995 Tucson Gem Show 12 months later, Dr. Hartnett and the AGTA had reached a compromise and settlement. Dr. Hartnett agreed he would drop the lawsuit against the AGTA (everyone knew he would win if it ever was actually taken to court) if the AGTA would recognize his right to sell pink Beryllium-Aluminum Silicate as Pink Emerald. The AGTA agreed. The AGTA also asked that for the next 5 years, if Dr. Hartnett would put an asterisk (*) next to the word Pink Emerald * each time it was written out and at the bottom of each page of any text, including his business cards, he should explain that, "in the mineral trade, Pink Emerald is know by the mineral names: pink Beryllium-Aluminum Silicate, pink beryl, Rosterite, Vorobievite, Worobieffite, and morganite, which incidentally is most probably the correct historical chronological order which this mineral was actually first discovered.

Dr. Hartnett who later went on to become the Founder, Chairman and CEO of the largest discount international telephone company in the world, USA Global Link and Global Online with offices in 120 countries, complied in good faith with this fair settlement agreement and many international gem dealers went on to sell huge amounts of pink Beryllium-Aluminum Silicate as PINK EMERALD and found that the public loved this gemstone much much more under the new found more appropriate and marketable nomenclature.