JOHN SINKANKAS AND GEMOLOGY: AN ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY

John Sinkankas (1915–2002) was a Renaissance man who wrote articles and books, mined gems and other minerals, and faceted large gems. After graduating from college, he entered the U.S. Navy and became an aviator. Travel during his Navy career gave him opportunities to observe gem mining and cutting, and to collect gems and minerals. After retiring from the Navy in 1961, he settled in San Diego, partly due to its proximity to gem-bearing pegmatites in the Pala District.

John’s curiosity led him on a course of self-study in the earth sciences and lapidary arts. Over 50+ years, he wrote 15 books and more than 150 articles about gem cutting, mineralogy, gem and mineral localities, prospecting, and minerals and gemstones. John richly illustrated his books with his watercolor paintings of gem and mineral specimens. Some of his notable works are still in demand, including his first book, Gem Cutting: A Lapidary’s Manual, published in four editions (1955 to 1984); the three-volume set Gemstones of North America (1959, 1976, 1997); and Emerald and Other Beryls (1981).

With his wife, Marjorie, John sought out and acquired books and articles. He decided to create an annotated bibliography that would track all the gemological works they had located. He searched through libraries and published bibliographies to find as many of these resources as he could document. When possible, he purchased the works, building his collection of books and journals into one of the world’s finest. This became The John and Marjorie Jane Sinkankas Gemological and Mineralogical Library (Sinkankas Collection), which was acquired by GIA in 1988. The original collection of approximately 14,000 items is housed at GIA’s World Headquarters in Carlsbad, California.

In 1993, John published Gemology: An Annotated Bibliography in two volumes with 7,458 entries in 1,179 pages. It is an excellent reference for gemological literature published between 1469 and 1990, with content dating from 300 BCE to the 20^th century. It is the most comprehensive annotated bibliography on gemology published and serves as a finding aid for works in the Sinkankas Collection. The GIA Library’s digitization project provides access to Gemology plus hundreds of rare books from the Sinkankas Collection; these works are available on Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/gialibrary.