melee – The Gemstone Project

The Résilient in Photographs

Posted on January 30, 2017January 30, 2017 by grayspinel

I’m doing a photo heavy and commentary light post because I have too much on my to do list, but I still wanted to share the beauty of this ring with you, and I haven’t been able to put a blog out about it yet.

The center stone is a Amora Moissanite cut into the OEC pattern, and all of the other stones are diamonds. The Amora Moissanite has been discontinued, which, after seeing it in person, is a real shame. They have replaced it with the Forever One Moissanite, and the OEC cutting is also nowhere to be found.

Sometimes, through great times of turmoil, comes great beauty.

The Vivant Ring

Posted on May 23, 2016May 22, 2016 by grayspinel

One thing I sometimes struggle with is keeping it simple. Sometimes I find myself adding details and thinking, “This is perfect!” and then going back and thinking, “Why did I add so much?!” I always try to remember that Coco Chanel quote:

“Before you leave the house, look in the mirror and take one thing off.”

Wise words from an impeccably fashionable woman. So while the Vivant necklace is a modern take with Art Deco appeal, I decided to keep the Vivant ring an echo of some of the details from the necklace, and lend towards classic simplicity.

The stones chosen for this setting were chosen to add a little bit of drama via color, with a neon pink Mahenge spinel, and two antique Old Mine Cut cushions (because antique cuts in diamonds are my favorites!) as the perfect classic accents.

Typically one of my favorite views, because it shows off so many details of a ring setting, and how they flow together.

The ring ends up at 2.64ctw of diamonds (antiques are .99ctw, melee are .10ctw) and spinel (1.55ct) and was made of 18kt white gold. This setting will be available (and tremendously adaptable!) for your own stone or stones, of any shape and size. I am also able to source stones, because pairs are not exactly easy to find sometimes!

And ending with the fluidity of the shank, and the slight split shank transition.

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!

Feature: Lang Antique & Estate Jewelry Inside

Posted on September 16, 2014September 4, 2014 by grayspinel

The Lang interior consists of about 3 larger cases of diamond rings. When we finally got inside, they were full of customers, so we waited our turn while chatting with the salesperson assigned to us. She told us that they will be moving just down the street to a new larger location, but that they don’t know when construction will be finished. She also told us that lately they haven’t been able to keep any blue zircons in the cases. We hypothesized that it may be due to the popularity of Paraiba tourmaline and teal colors in general being very popular right now. I wonder if buyers are educating themselves more and discovering that zircon is not the same thing as cubic zirconia.

Anyway, we tried on some diamonds, and my friend particularly fell in love with this cushion. I think her boyfriend might be getting a link or two in his email…

We were on the side with the larger diamonds, but nothing quite like the honkers in the store windows.

This was only part of one case.

Beautiful profile view of a ring. The dark stones are actually bright blue sapphires. My white balance got screwed up when I was snapping the picture, but the other pictures were blurry.

A beautifully patterned OEC ring.

A massive ball of step cuts. even though I love step cuts, this one didn’t really do anything for me. I think the proportions of the sidestones bothered me. I like to have more of an extreme taper. I think the trapezoids compete with the center stone.

A large marquise cut stone, the profile was gorgeous, and looked a bit like a boat.

Both my friend and the salesperson really liked this ring on me, but I always see an eyeball when I see rings like this. I can’t help it!

I don’t particularly like fishtail prongs, but between the beautiful center stone and the french cut sides, this ring really wanted to come home with me.

I have to say though, I was disappointed to hear that they will not sell any stones loose. Nor do they sell settings separately. Also, the prices are astronomical, compared to other retailers of fine antique jewelry.

That about sums it up for the visit to Lang. I’m so glad I got to go! I saw so many beautiful jewels, and had a fantastic time with a very good friend! I wish we had been able to spend more time looking around and trying things on, but their little store was completely packed and neither of us was going to be buying that day. It was really fun to see what different size diamonds look like, and to judge the cut quality on so many different stones at once. I would highly recommend it if you’re going to be visiting San Francisco and want to get a good antique jewelry fix!