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.

 

The Neon Green Tsar — Demantoid Garnet

March 10, 2018 0Comments

Brilliant, green, collectible and breathtaking, demantoid garnet is what laudantium, totam rem aperiam eaque ipsa, quae ab illo inventore veritatis et quasi architecto beatae vitae dicta sunt, explicabo. Nemo enim ipsam voluptatem, quia voluptas sit, aspernatur aut odit aut fugit, sed quia consequuntur magni dolores eos, qui ratione voluptatem sequi nesciunt, neque porro quisquam est, qui dolorem ipsum, quia dolor…

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The Forbidden Road to Chila

February 10, 2018 0Comments

You may be forgiven for thinking Africa’s only ‘Sperrgebiet’, a restricted access wilderness of gemstone-bearing lands, is solely Namibia’s claim to frame. It turns out however, in the remote Ethiopian Highlands, at a height of almost 8,000 feet, a large sapphire-field has been found in a remote, culturally-timeless area that is carefully administered by the authorities. This new find, made…

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‘NON-BINARY’ Ruby & Sapphire?

November 26, 2017 0Comments

A fantastic, intense red and blue color piece of hard-to-classify corundum. More than just a bi-color sapphire, this vivaciously colored jewel seems to be both ruby and sapphire. Rejecting traditional corundum-identities we have self-identified this as a “rupphire” (joke lol) Weighing 1.69 Carats, this is Vietnamese, and is heated.

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Contact Fusion

October 28, 2017 0Comments

This sapphire fail is now a solid aggregated mass of sapphire that has bonded together unusually strongly.  The crucible of sapphire was left in the oven longer than planned during the New Year celebrations, and is a casualty of the raucous alcohol-fueled celebrations that have happened here this weekend. This lot belonged to a heater who has an office a…

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WHAT LIES BENEATH

July 4, 2017 0Comments

WHAT LIES BENEATH – A thick, black iron-oxide crust covers an 11 Gram / 55 Carat blue sapphire. Resistant to scratching with restaurant tableware, this tough and ugly lamina almost completely conceals the sapphire’s real potential and high-value derived from it’s cornflower-blue color.

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Swords to Plowshares

June 20, 2017 0Comments

and they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning hooks —Isaiah 2:3–4 A generation ago these Tigray farmers-cum-sapphire miners were the fighters who prosecuted a war against the ruling regime and won, overturning the despots who largely created the 1980’s famine. With victory won, the fighters returned to their land, swapped their weapons for ploughshares and…

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ETHIOPIAN SAPPHIRES – A New Find

April 22, 2017 0Comments

I n late 2016, a sapphire deposit was found in Madagascar that yielded the most beautiful, soft yet 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. A few months later, and far to the…

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Unheated Ruby Crystal

April 4, 2017 0Comments
This was an unusual ruby crystal that shows a lovely graduation of color, relatively good clarity at one end, and also undissolved unheated rutile needles all in the original form at 60 degrees to each other. The 10 carat crystal started at a padparadscha type color that gave way to fabulous hot pink-purple-red. The crystal was completely free if iron-chromophores…

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