copper bearing tourmaline – The Gemstone Project

Eye Candy, Updates and Gray Spinels

Posted on October 5, 2015October 6, 2015 by grayspinel

It has been a long, crazy week. I spent a lot of it photographing and posting 3 ring settings (Aurore, Exaltée, and Feuilles Dorées) as well as my first necklace, Vivant. I have one band that is super close to going into production, and a couple other bands that need to be photographed and posted. Since I have spent so much time taking photos of these pieces this week, I figured I’d include some of them in the blog.

I’ve also been working diligently on some custom projects, one of which is being set now, and is certainly going to be a statement piece. I also have a custom design for a violet spinel that I’ve been struggling with, but I think I have finally got an idea in my head and know the general concept. Then I also have a green cuprian tourmaline ring that will probably need a few tweaks before it goes into production. Plus a bunch more custom projects coming through the pipeline.

I have also been getting a ton of requests to find stones for special occasion rings – lots of engagement ring stones in the works over here, with some funky cool cabs thrown into the mix. If you are looking for a gemstone, please be aware that it can take a lot of time, depending on what you’re looking for! The earlier I start looking, and the looser the deadlines, the better.

I’ve been working with a friend to find the perfect stone for a prize she won at the Pricescope JCK event back in May, and we found the perfect stone and I cannot wait to see it in the finished piece.

I get tons of requests for gray spinel, because it’s one of those stones I’m super passionate about, and I don’t keep that quiet. It is getting increasingly popular, and I have a growing list of people who are looking for it. Beware, prices for it are going up!

I’m considering a few additions to my newly revised website, and perhaps changing the structure of the blog a bit, with maybe one monthly post with what I’m up to, perhaps a Gem Blast, an informational/educational post, and then perhaps a wildcard post of some sort (design process perhaps?). I’ve been so terribly swamped that I haven’t been able to keep up and get as ahead as much as I normally do.

Another reminder of the sale I have going on in my etsy shop! This coupon code is only good until November 1, so use it while you can! “AUTUMN2015” (no quotes) is good for 15% off purchases of $100 or more. I might run some holiday specials when it gets closer to that time, but I haven’t determined that just yet.

It looks like I will be getting a new office space relatively soon, (yay for no more gem-color-altering pink walls!) so lots of my time will be dedicated to redecorating as we move into the winter months. I’m really excited about this, because it will be the first space I really get to call my own!

Also, because I have been getting questions about it, some of the prototype rings seen in their various pages on my site will be going up for sale – please let me know directly if you would like to be added to that item’s interest list!

Many things underway here, and definitely keeping busy!

Inclusions

Posted on August 31, 2015August 30, 2015 by grayspinel

Gas bubbles, feathers, crystals, veils, carbon spots, lily pads, silk, jardin, etc. There are maybe more types of inclusions than there are gemstone varieties!

I seem to have spent the last week talking about inclusions with various people. I figured that since I’ve been talking about it so much, I might as well turn all of that discussion into a blog entry. This post is pretty generalized. It is more of a take on my view of inclusions, how they affect the beauty/appearance, and a little bit about their effect on value.

Inclusions don’t bother me in colored stones, but they do (most of the time) in diamonds. But that’s because I’m all about color. When I design, typically diamonds are accents, unless, of course, they are colored diamonds.

If the color is right, and the price is right, inclusions are great. They show the stone is natural and they usually lower the price. Some inclusions are prized, like silk in rubies and sapphires, horsetails in demantoids, jardin in emeralds, and they make the stones more valuable.

Now, why would they make the stone more valuable? Well, they can show provenance, they show evidence of treatment and can make for some stunning effects on the gem. Without silk, there would be no gorgeous velvet vivid blue sapphires and no huge markup for a Kashmir blue sapphire.

All of these gems are more rare than diamonds, so inclusions in colored gems are acceptable, so long as they don’t interfere too much with the overall appearance of the gem. Diamonds really aren’t that rare, despite what the diamond industry might want you to believe, so insisting on a stone being at least eyeclean doesn’t really narrow the diamond field that much. But if you’re looking for an internally flawless sapphire, ruby or spinel for instance, you might be waiting for quite a while.

So, clarity between diamonds and most colored gemstones just a completely different ballgame. It is inclusions and differences in chemical composition that can give gems their coloration. There wouldn’t be the electric neon glow of Paraiba tourmaline without copper.

In my opinion, the inclusions don’t necessarily detract from the beauty of the stone, and I think they are super cool to look at under magnification, not to mention, as I said before, they can create awesome visual effects within the stone. For instance, I love the gas bubbles seen in this Mahenge – they remind me of carbonation bubbles in soft drinks.

Lets get a little bit more specific, with spessartite. Typically I actually prefer sugar inclusions in Loliondo, because they give it a glow that they don’t have otherwise, but I like clean stones too – though they tend to look brown in certain lighting because there aren’t any inclusions to break up the light reaching the facets. So then the facets reflect everything and typically it looks brown because of the orange color. Spess is very complicated.

If colored gemstones weren’t rare, and there was a plethora of these gems out there, the way they are with diamonds, then yeah, I’d insist on eyeclean, the same way I do for diamonds. But they aren’t. All of these beautiful little colored stones are actually pretty rare, even more so in the stone’s ideal colors, which explains the mark up!

So. I give a big thumbs up to inclusions. Inclusions and I are friends.

Viva Las Vegas! JCK 2015 Part 2!

Posted on June 11, 2015June 10, 2015 by grayspinel

Part 2. Or day 2. This is by far the most photo intensive post in this trilogy.

Friday

Naturally, after not getting to sleep until 3am, we slept in a bit, though that was not the plan. The plan was to get to JCK ASAP and start trawling through gemstones as early as we could. Instead we woke up and started looking at gemstones again, this time in daylight, before deciding it was time to eat. Of course I went for the color shifting 6ct violet sapphire first.

None of the other photos came out well, so I’ll skip them in an already picture heavy post.

Meeting with Amy Phillips of David Klass Jewelry

First thing we did after gathering our badges to go into the show was meet with Amy with David Klass Jewelry. She was showing us a wax for a ring David is making with the emerald from the first post. A client had been working with them on a diamond halo design, but had kind of hit a brick wall after a few CADs. I made a couple of tweaks to make the design a little bit more delicate and feminine. Since it’s not complete yet, I’ll keep it to a more boring view. I will say that I am so excited to see this project completed!

AGTA Show: Prima Gems

From seeing the wax, we went downstairs to the AGTA show, otherwise known as colored stones! So you already know I was so excited!

Of course I studied the map and made a beeline for Prima Gems. I browsed for a while, bumping into a few people that I recognized, including Yvonne Raley.

I just want to say that Nattalie Shah is an angel. My companion was seeking out red spinels and green garnets, but in the meantime, I had every single spinel pulled out of the case and had them spread out all over the counter. Not joking:

Here is a 12ct Mahenge Spinel, moderately included.

Same stone, being a show off.

While my companion was digging through red spinels, I was amusing myself going through a massive parcel of smaller red and pink spinels, pulling out stones that talked to me and putting them on a gem sorting tray. Most of these were the largest in there, but there was one that had color that just popped out at me.

The entirety of the parcel I was going through:

Playing with the UV flashlight.

Some of the red spinels that were being scrutinized.

No, really, scrutinized!

At one point, I got tired of red spinels, (though not tired enough to ask them to put them away!) and asked to see this really awesome blue-green tourmaline. This stone needs to be made into a necklace.

From the red spinels, we went to green garnets. Check out these mints!

In the meantime, I had put this little guy to the side for myself. Tiny, but you can see the neon color from across the room.

I’d forgive the shape for this color, the perfect blue-green for a mint.

Then Nattalie pulled out the UV light to play with a 4ct tsavorite. It was like Christmas in one stone!

Doing a mean impression of an emerald. Inclusions didn’t hinder the performance of this stone at all, though magnification makes the inclusions look worse than they are. This is one of those stones that doesn’t show it’s true beauty in photographs.

AGTA Show: Random vendors

At this point, we had spent so much time pouring over Prima stones after our late start, that we had run out of time, so we raced around just a bit looking at a few other booths. I took some photos of items that caught my eye.

A couple little rose cuts.

Colored stone melee, starting at .8mm to 3mm.

Untreated emerald rings.

Brazilian Paraiba. I should have inquired about pricing, but didn’t have time to stop.

Managed to have Gem 2000 pull some larger light pink sapphires to view for a client.

Ogled Gem 2000’s emeralds. The emeralds were everywhere!

And their spinels. Spinels were also everywhere.

I was also on the look out for blue sapphires for another client, so we checked these out with Gem 2000 as well,

The Other Roommate’s Arrival

After hopping on the shuttle and rushing to meet our other bling sister, we found her, and of course helped ourselves to her jewels. I know you’re surprised, but I took a bunch of photos:
Blue zircon.

Green sphene earring drops from Prima Gems.

Tanzanite double halo ring.

Vintage ruby and diamond ring, Love Affair Diamonds.

Ideal cut diamond earrings with ideal cut diamond halo jackets, ID Jewelry.

Mint garnet from Prima Gems

Spessartite garnet from Prima Gems

Ideal cut diamond

Dinner time: Texas de Brazil

So, by this point, it was time to grab dinner. We were picked up in a limo, and taken to Texas de Brazil. I hadn’t had Brazilian in several years, and this Brazilian put THAT Brazilian to shame. If you have the opportunity to go to one of these restaurants, do it. And hit up the salad bar in a major way, because it’s so so so good. Just as good as the meat, which is, of course, the main attraction.

The table in our private room was made of one giant piece of wood, and I loved the contrast with the lucite chairs.

My favorite dinner companion. Diamonds.

And to finish up the night, some random colored stone rings, including a couple of mine.

Yet again, we didn’t end up falling asleep until 2am, and there was no partying involved! The last day was fast approaching and I was determined to get to the show earlier than I had today.

Day 3! Blog post fast approaching! Tomorrow!