All things bright and sparkly

Oh frabjous joy!  The Rio Grande catalog arrived yesterday with all kinds of shiny and sparkly things in it!  Simulated Alexandrite, robin's egg turquoise, and the only Byzantine chain necklace I've ever seen for sale.  It's a little alarming to see gold, silver, and platinum sold in bulk though, as just another raw material.  I think Roxanne and I can come up with a decent joint order, the hard part is deciding what not to get this time...

Still don't see the point of Platineé, platinum plated over silver.  Looks the same as normal silver, but more expensive.  Vermeil I see the point of, gold plated over silver.

There was an interesting printing error in the catalog: retail prices were printed on 12 pages by mistake, and were almost exactly three times the normal catalog price.  The stick in replacement price grids they sent had dark backs, so there is no way to see the original prices once they're in.