Heart of Stone Studio Blog

Cabochons front to back

       One of the best things about running a website is that I get to dialogue with my customers, mostly by e-mail, but occasionally by phone, too. Sometimes it's a very educational experience for me.

     An issue came up this past week: A customer bought a stone that she thought was beautiful, but she couldn't use it because the back wasn't polished. Of course she was able to return it to me, but it made me realize something: "Tradition" is shifting yet again in the stone world. Here's what I mean:

    As long as I can remember, cabochons generally were never polished in the back. A lapidarist would slice a  1/4" thick slab from a chunk of rough, draw the outline of the stones he wanted to cut onto the slab, and then cut them out. Then he would meticulously grind away the excess and form the piece into a typical rounded cabochon with a nice smooth, graduated surface. But his work was far from over--He still had to polish the stone. This involved laboriously working the stone through a series of finer and finer polishing grits (washing one polishing compound off before applying the next), until he could bring it to a high shine.

     If you consider all the labor that went into producing one single cabochon, you would realize that polishing the back of the stone was not cost-effective for the cutter--After all, the stone would be bezel-set, and once that was done, no one would ever see the back of the cab, anyway. So why waste time (and thus money)polishing the back? In fact, one pretty sure way to tell a stone is hand-carved and polished is by the back.

    But as I learned from my customer, times are changing. In the past few years, wire-wrapping has come into its own as a way to set stones. Talented wire-wrappers are doing really fine, artistic work that can be more individualized and graceful than traditional bezel-setting. Problem is: Now you can see the backs of the stones, and they have to be polished. Strangely enough, this really didn't dawn on me until I corresponded with my customer this week.

    I still carry a few stones that don't have polished backs. And I will continue to carry them for a couple of reasons: First and foremost, they are really beautiful. Second, they were cut by traditional lapidary artists, and I want to continue to show support for this art form. However, as I post these types of stones to the website in the future, I will mention that they don't have polished backs, so the wire-wrappers out there will know.

    This doesn't mean, of course, that all stones with polished backs are not hand-crafted. In most cases, they are. If the entire stone has been polished by hand, then most likely that extra effort will be reflected in the cost.

    But another new lapidary development is that some of the top cutters are designing, carving, and shaping their cabs by hand, and then polishing them by machine. They do this by putting the stones in rotary tumblers, along with polishing compound. They have to rotate the stones among several different tumblers, each with a successively finer grit polishing media, and the whole process can take several weeks, with the tumblers running 24 hours a day. But they can put several dozen stones in a tumbler at one time, instead of working on them individually. It saves them time, and keeps the cost down for hand-cut stones that are polished on both sides.

     There are some drawbacks to this process: The cutter can't really mix stones of varying hardnesses, because the harder ones will scratch and possibly break the softer ones. Also, with all that tumbling, one or two stones per batch will most likely be lost due to breakage. Also, not all species of stones lend themselves to tumbling.

      But the biggest challenge is that 99 percent of tumbling media can't bring out the same high level of shine as individual polishing. Most lapidarists who have tried it, have failed. Fortunately, I've been lucky enough to find a couple of lapidarists who are not only artists at cutting, but who also have discovered the right recipes for tumbling media, as well as the right techniques, that will bring out that fantastic high shine. And let me tell you, those media recipes and tumbling techniques are closely-guarded secrets. They wouldn't even give me a hint. That's OK, as long as they keep selling me their fabulous stones, so I can make them available to you, I won't complain.

    So those are the ins and outs, front to back, about polishing cabochons. Perhaps you'll see yours with new eyes now. Oh, and if you are a wire-wrapper and need to ensure that all your stones are fully polished, please write me a little note to that effect when you check out from my website, OK? (www.heartofstonestudio.com) That way I can make sure you get the right stones for your needs.

   

Gem dealers you would like

    When you look at a gemstone, be it faceted or cabochon, it's sometimes hard to imagine where it came from, or the path it traveled to get to you. Often we forget that when we as jewelers examine our own stone collection, we are touching "souvenirs" from all over the earth.

   Lately, the gem trade has been sullied by negative stories about smuggling, "blood" stones, money laundering, and other illegal and unethical practices. While some of these may be true, they don't characterize the way the vast majority of small dealers do business. Most gem dealers are here simply because of their love of minerals. Working with these materials is an end in itself. So I thought I'd introduce you briefly to some of the wholesale dealers responsible for the supply of stones on the Heart of Stone Studio website.

     Let me start with Harry, my friend from Indonesia. He and his wife Mary work together, and it seems that Mary holds down the business end of things while Harry is the entreprenuer. He supervises the mining of material, he trains and hires the cutters, and he does the selling at the shows. He is constantly on the search for new gemstones. The fossilized corals and some of the natural drusies on my site are from him.

     I asked him how he locates new material, and he told me that he goes from village to village on the various islands, and asks the locals to bring in interesting stones for him to see. In one village, someone brought him some beautiful lavender chalcedony, and so he got permission from the local landowner to remove some rough material. After he had mined a small amount, the landowner told him that if Harry wanted any more of it, he would have to buy the land. So he did.

   The neatest part of the story is that after Harry had mined a vein of chalcedony and had what he wanted, he covered over the mine and planted hardwood trees "so the villagers would have something after I left," he said.

   Another dealer is John, who with his wife Karen owns a rock shop in southeastern Arizona. Their rock shop is a wonderland of mineral specimens, spheres, bowls of tumbled Apache tears and pebbles of Peridot, and cabochons. John does all his own lapidary work, and has supplied Heart of Stone Studio with a variety of Arizona minerals and natural drusies. John and Karen have an RV that they drive around the west, taking their wares to regional rock and gem shows. I carry a stone, cinnabar in quartz, that John mined himself: He found it in the earth, he took the rough home, he cut it, and then sold it to me so I can bring it to you. Now that's what I call quality control!

    Then there's Gabriela and her two brothers. They are young people in their twenties, and they are from Italy. They are part of a family coral business: Their father, Fluvio, has spent the past forty years working with local fishermen off the coast of Sardinia, harvesting red twig coral from deep in the Mediterranean Sea. They sell fabulous gem coral at reasonable prices, and they are a delight to talk with. Because of them, I will be able to offer top-quality gem coral on the website, coral that I've had to pass up in years past because I couldn't find a dealer whose prices I could afford.

    And back in Arizona, there's Keith and Alex, a father-son team who are master gem cutters. Keith used to work on a ranch breeding quarterhorses, then came into the lapidary business by way of turquoise. He now teaches lapidary at the local community college, and still cuts stones for wholesale. His stones have extremely elegant cuts that I really admire. His son Alex cuts transparent stones, his favorite being ametrine--the purple/yellow gem where amethyst grades into citrine. Alex not only artistically cuts these stones, he also sets them into gold, creating one-of-a-kind, stunning designs.

   And then there's Maxam, who with his wife and small sales team, run a wholesale gemstone business where I purchase most of my coated drusies. I was surprised to learn that Maxam started out in the gem business specializing in rubies. He didn't enjoy the cutthroat nature of that aspect of the industry, so he moved on, becoming the first major person to promote titanium, platinum, and gold-coated drusies in the U.S. Since then, he has specialized in designing and building totally new types of gemstones, combining carved and faceted quartz with other materials such as mother of pearl. Hopefully I will be able to carry some of his unique designs on my site in the future.

    And of course, there's Pat. Her lapidary workshop is set up on her back patio, facing her desert backyard where a nearly-tame bunny stops by every day to cadge a treat. Pat's the brave one who cuts the nastily-dirty but gorgeous Psilomelane. So much black gunk sprays off her grinders when she shapes the stone that she wears a raincoat, a shower cap, gloves and goggles when she cuts it. Yet she is able to coax beautiful cuts and patterns from the material.

    I have other dealers, too numerous to fit in here, from far-flung places such as Thailand, Namibia, and Australia, as well as nearer neighbors such as Mexico and Montana. What has been most fun about finding these dealers has been the opportunity to get to know them and find out how they came into the business and what makes them tick. The neat thing is, regardless of our home country or background, we all have in common one important thing: Our fascination and love for beautiful gems from the earth.

   

   

    

Colored stones: true and false

    I can remember the first time I was duped about a colored gemstone. I was sixteen, and a friend of the family who was a nun got to go on a trip to Egypt. She brought me back a ring that she had bought in a bazaar there. It was a carved turquoise scarab beetle, set in silver. I was thrilled, until after wearing it for a couple of weeks, my finger turned green from the base metal, and the shiny surface of the scarab wore away, exposing the chalk beneath. I was disappointed, and shocked that anyone would deliberately cheat a nun. It was my introduction to the problems involved in purchasing colored gemstones.

     A few years later, I dated a man who had a friend who owned a business in the jewelry building on South Wabash Avenue in Chicago.  I went there to look at jewelry, and became fascinated with a beautiful ring whose stone changed color--reddish purple under incandescent light, brilliant brown under halogen, and a teal green in daylight. The stone was marquise-cut and set in white gold to look like a leaf, flanked by three tiny branches set with diamonds. The jeweler told me it was a synthetic alexandrite. The real ones were the rarest gemstones in the world, he explained, but this synthetic one had the same chemical composition and behaved just like the genuine article. I was so taken with the ring, I didn't care that the stone was man-made, so I bought it (for about $30) and still have it to this day. 

    In both of the above stories, the stones were fakes. The difference between the two of course, is that in the second story, the buyer was informed. The dealer was honest and let me know exactly what I was buying, and the purchase price accurately reflected the value of the stone.

   Unfortunately, not everyone behaves this way. In my colored stone class at GIA, one of my teachers told the story of going on a gemstone-buying trip to Bangkok. He was examining a particularly fine (and expensive) sapphire in a roomful of buyers and sellers, when he suddenly figured out that the stone he was examining wasn't a real sapphire at all. He glanced around the room and realized that if he accused the seller of cheating him, who knows what would happen to him, traveling alone in a foreign country, so he quietly handed the stone back, told the dealer he had changed his mind, thanked him, and moved on.

   I myself had a similar experience. Right after my GIA courses were completed, my husband and I were spending the day in San Diego to celebrate. We strolled around an exclusive shopping district and I happened upon a storefront of a shop that sold estate jewelry. I saw a gorgeous diamond ring in the window, and went in and asked to see it.  The price tag was $28,000.00. I pulled out my newly minted jeweler's loupe to examine the stone, and when I looked at the back, I thought I saw lines of telltale color that betrayed that this stone might be an imitation. I gave the stone back to the saleswoman and left. Obviously, with such a cursory examination, I could well have been wrong, but it was enough to convince me that I would never buy a large diamond without proper GIA certification. 

     Colored stones are probably easier to fake than diamonds, and the equipment needed to accurately identify and assess colored stones is actually much more extensive than the equipment needed for diamonds. Unscrupulous dealers substitute colored glass imitations and pass them off to unsuspecting buyers. Or they glue a small amount of a real stone onto a larger portion of cheaper material, and charge for the combined weight at the precious stone's price rate. There are dozens of ways to doctor and fake colored stones.

     Nowadays, there are companies who specialize in making synthetic stones, and openly announce that their products are synthetic. Synthetic stones are identical in chemical composition to genuine stones, but they are made by machines. I have a friend who bought an emerald ring while on a cruise in the Caribbean. It's a real emerald all right--so occluded (cloudy) that I couldn't even see the internal faceting. She might have done better to buy a synthetic emerald. It would have had the same gorgeous green color, plus clarity and sparkle. (The one thing that makes synthetic stones relatively easy to tell apart from mined material is that synthetic stones are clean inside, where the real gem has tiny imperfections that can be seen with a magnifying loupe.)

    What adds to the confusion for the public is that many real faceted gemstones are treated in some way--they are often heated or irradiated to cause a color change (as in the case of all blue topazes or blue zircons). Many of these treatments are considered perfectly acceptable and legitimate--without them, we would not have the range of beautiful colors that we do in the gem world.

   The thing is, even with the heating or irradiation, you should still be getting a genuine stone. And, the dealer should be ready and willing to tell you about any of the treatments should you ask. If a dealer tells you that the stone is totally natural, that means that not only is the stone itself genuine, but it hasn't received any treatments of any type. But how do you know for sure, short of bringing the stone in to a certified gemologist? You don't. You have to trust the dealer, who is also trusting the person he bought either the stone or the rough from.

     The very last topic covered in both my diamond and colored stone courses was an overview of the many ways that gemstones can be faked. It was pretty overwhelming. The bottom line for both courses was that you increase the probability of avoiding fakes in two ways: 1) by becoming educated and knowing what to look for and 2) by buying from a reputable dealer whom you can trust.

    Dealers who are members of professional organizations such as the American Gem Traders Association (AGTA), or the Gem and Lapidary Dealers' Association (GLDA) and others, promise to sell only genuine stones and openly reveal any treatments those stones might have received. So buying from those member dealers is a way to hedge your bets. But even an honest dealer can be fooled, especially if your stone started out as part of a lot of several dozen or hundred that he purchased. In that case, the dealer should admit he was mistaken and either take back the stone or replace it for you.

      Buying gems is a risk. Yes, get educated. Yes, get a "feel" for the real thing. But also choose a reputable dealer and build a working relationship with him or her. The bottom line is: It's all a matter of trust.

Being a GIA student

   Being inside GIA to take a course is a great experience. Students are of all ages, from young people choosing GIA instead of a regular college, to jewelers already in the business and being funded by their companies to take courses for professional advancement, to people like me who wanted to learn all they could about gemstones.

    The lobby is expansive and built to impress--after all, this IS the seat of the gemstone business in the U.S. A circular room off the lobby contains ever-changing displays of fabulous jewelry set with magnificent gemstones, most of which has been donated to GIA by successful graduates and patrons. The classroom wing, where I spent most of my time, is also lined with displays set into the corridor walls behind thick glass. These displays are educational in nature, each devoted to a different group of gems, such as beryls, or tourmalines, or zircons. You can look through the glass and see large gemstones displayed with accompanying text informing you about the nature of those stones.  Some display cases would have miniature sculptures either carved completely out of gem material, or they would be encrusted, completely covered, with faceted stones in different colors.

    The classes I took each ran eight hours a day for an entire week, and when we took breaks or lunch, we would empty out into the corridor and the classroom would be locked behind us to protect the gemstones and equipment we were working with. Sometimes we would return before the instructor did and we would have to wait out in the corridor, but it was never boring because we could just gaze at the sparkling gemstones in the display cases.

    Or, we could stroll outside where a large patio and walkway overlooks the ocean, offering a bird's eye view of Carlsbad's colorful flower farms, planted just below. One day I walked the length of the classroom building and found myself in a small courtyard where a second building offered a blank face to the world. I approached and saw that the door was locked, and next to it, a guard posted behind bulletproof glass told me that this building was GIA's famous gem-testing lab. Only the staff enters there. So I returned to my classroom.

    As befitting the nature of the industry, the instructors at GIA were all top-notch professionals in their fields, most of whom held jobs in the jewelry industry before coming to GIA to teach. They dressed impeccably, as though they had just come from behind a jewelry counter at Tiffany's. No Birkenstocks and torn jeans here! Each of the courses I took had two instructors, and both had extensive experience in buying and selling gemstones. One also had lapidary experience--he had cut faceted stones for a living. These people can answer just about any question you can think of, and believe me, I thought of a lot. My two instructors were friendly, funny, informative, and extremely helpful, all while maintaining their professionalism.

     Each of the courses I took involved in-depth background information about the stones--their history, where and how they are mined, their distinguishing physical attributes (in the case of colored stones, these are many), and, their imperfections (and in the case of diamonds, these are many). 

   I found it amusing that instructors at GIA never talk about stones, even diamonds, in terms of "flaws"--you won't hear the word used. Instead they use the term, "characteristics."  This is because they are training the people who will be selling diamonds, and 99.99% of all diamonds have some imperfections. A perfect, flawless diamond is so rare that if you actually owned one, you would NEVER wear it--You would keep it in a safe deposit box so that it would never get accidentally chipped or damaged in some way, which would of course, cause its relative value to plummet. A flawless diamond is not a wearable gem.

   Diamonds and transparent colored gemstones are crystals, and those crystals come from deep within the earth. Being made of natural material, they all have tiny imperfections--inclusions of foreign material, tiny fractures, "clouds", "feathers", extra crystals growing on them, etc. Colored stones can have variations in color intensity within the stone as well. Add to that the human dimension of the cutter, who might set the facets not quite symmetrically, or who might cut the stone in less than an ideal, perfect shape so as to maximize its carat weight, and thus, its price--and you have gems that can look fine to the untrained eye, but which have a variety of imperfections.

    With diamonds especially, the public tends to assume that they are expensive because they are pure, clear, and perfect. Finding out about their imperfections can be quite a shock, perhaps even disillusionment. However, to GIA, these natural imperfections, these characteristics, are what make each diamond in the world unique. A GIA certificate is, at heart, a complete portrait of a gemstone, inside and out, and in their diamond grading course, we learned how to paint that portrait.

    The only way you can learn about diamonds, really, is to work with the real thing. I myself inspected, I would guess, several dozen different diamonds during the week-long diamond-grading course. But if there are any enterprising criminals out there reading this and thinking of planning a diamond heist from a GIA classroom in the future, don't bother. The diamonds the students work with, although real enough, contain so many flaws that you couldn't get much for them on the open market.

    The culmination of the course is a big exam during which you have two hours to grade two different diamonds that you have picked randomly from a pile of envelopes at the front of the room. In the exam, you have to fill out a diamond grading report which is identical to those your jeweler obtains from GIA for the diamonds he sells. In it, I not only had to weigh the stone, but also assess its color, the quality of its cut, and I had to plot out on a map of the diamond, the location and type of every single characteristic inside it and on its surface. Based on plotting all these characteristics, I had to evaluate and grade the stone's overall clarity.

    It was just my luck that the first stone I chose happened to be so included that I couldn't even see through it--It had a huge mess of problems, each and every one I had to identify, code, and plot in the correct position on a drawing of a diamond. (This, incidentally, is another reason a GIA certification is so valuable: It contains a detailed "map" of the inside and outside of your diamond, with the type and location of each characteristic accurately drawn--A one-of-a-kind portrait of your stone that protects you should anyone ever try to switch your diamond for one of lesser quality when you take it in to be resized or cleaned.)

    Anyway, to make a long and nerve-wracking story short, it took me an hour and a half of the alloted two hours, just to grade my first diamond of the exam. Fortunately, the second one I pulled was much cleaner and I was able to finish in time, and even get a 96% score on the exam! This exam gets entered in the GIA record, and it and my certificate show that I know diamonds.

next....a bit about colored stones