Gem Notes

 

If you enjoy rare and precious gemstones and their related stories, here you will find a litany of gemstone ramblings, gemological observations, and useful and time-wasting trivia bought from behind-the-scenes in the rough and cut gem markets of Asia and Africa.

 

Twinning in Unheated Mozambique Ruby

Red, orange and pink parallel lines show through in the twinning in this unheated natural Mozambique ruby. While a relatively common feature in rubies from Mozambique, they generally have to be placed under the dark-field type lighting of a gemological microscope to be seen so easily. In the rough-gemstone stage, should the twinning be quite prominent, the preforming manufacturer will…

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Calcite Inclusions in Unheated Ruby

Pyramidal shaped calcite crystals in this 2 Carat Unheated Mozambique Ruby peep out. The clear crystal shapes are still intact and are not deformed in any way. This inclusion type is called an syngenetic type of inclusion and is likely to have formed at the same time as the host ruby crystal. An intact crystal such as this is strongly…

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Golden Silk in Unheated Sapphire

This huge size 18 carat unheated sapphire from Tigray in Northern Ethiopia shows a highly unusual type of golden silk. Usually silk in unheated sapphire is whitish in color and is composed of rutile a.k.a. titanium dioxide. This particular item is likely to have higher concentrations of hematite and ilmenite which is generally the most frequent companion minerals seen in…

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Footprints in A Padparadscha

How a tiny dot tells a story A beautiful orange-pink sapphire, that some may choose to call a padparadscha, came across the table the other day in our buying office in the ruby and sapphire market in Chanthaburi, Thailand. The color was that perfect orange-pink with a slight hint of purple that its so reminiscent of the Lotus Flower. The…

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Bemainty Sapphire — The Birth of a Modern Great

In 2016, deep in the rainforest biomes of Eastern Madagascar, a sapphire deposit was found that yielded the most beautiful, softest yet mesmerising intense-blue colors found for years. So attractive was this material, that the SSEF even produced a Trade Alert warning that some dealers and labs were passing this fabulous new material off as Kashmir-origin sapphire. The Even the…

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