Both diamonds and colored stones have something in common, and that's the importance of cut. An excellently-cut stone can dazzle the eye with light and sparkle, and distract from weaknesses such as inclusions and less-than-ideal color. Conversely, a poorly-cut stone is a sad thing, as though the material couldn’t live up to its potential.
When I first began shopping for faceted stones, I really tried to carefully look at what I was purchasing. But it's hard: Try standing in front of a dealer's booth filled with gems, the halogen lights beating down on you, other shoppers jostling you and trying to get waited on, and you will soon realize that you have to make quick decisions on the quality of a stone. I made some mistakes and learned pretty quickly, and honed my skills by looking at hundreds, even thousands of faceted stones.
What I came away with was the impression of how much drek there is out there, yet people keep buying it. I am especially disheartened by how bad much of the cutting is, especially with smaller stones. You would think that it's relatively simple, once you've learned how to cut a gemstone, to do it consistently and symmetrically, leaving out the bad inclusions and working to bring out the beauty of the material. Nope.
One confounding problem is weight. Diamonds and colored stones are sold by weight, not by size or shape. A hundredth of a carat left on a stone may not seem like much, but multiplied by thousands, even tens of thousands of stones, that weight can add up to big additional profits. The problem is, that added weight has to go somewhere, and it might go into making the stone deeper than it should be for an ideal cut, or its girdle thicker, or the crown (top) higher or broader. Working to include that extra weight results a slight but definite change in the proportions of the stone, which in turn affects how light enters and bounces around before leaving to greet the viewer's eye.
Another problem is perceived value. There is pressure to squeeze the last iota out of a piece of gem rough, because this is not material that anyone likes to waste. Regularly “editing out” and tossing material with inclusions and other imperfections would drastically reduce the yield. However, sometimes the problems are so noticeable that a cutter can’t possibly include them, so he or she is forced to “work around” a serious flaw, which again might alter the proportions of the finished stone.
The third thing to keep in mind is that not all gemstones are cut by experts. Yes, larger diamonds are, but some less-valuable diamonds and many, many smaller colored stones are cut by beginners. Do I hear a gasp? Well, they have to start somewhere. And unfortunately, many student efforts in gem-producing regions don’t end up on the rubbish heap. Most often, they are tucked into lots, which are larger quantities of stones made available to wholesale gem dealers. Back when I started as a jeweler, I purchased some lots of faceted stones, which seemed like great deals at the time. When I got them home, I found that 10-20% of each lot was composed of really fine gems, about half of them were OK—eye-clean, and the remaining 30 to 40% were what I would call trash—badly flawed and/or poorly cut. By the time I had sorted out only the good stones, my per-stone price had increased dramatically. I set the “trash” stones aside for students to use for practice, but some dealers will go ahead and put them into lower-priced jewelry.
Now, I don’t want to give the impression that gem miners or cutters or dealers are unscrupulous people “out to get” the consumer. I prefer to look at it this way: Natural gemstones can be a crapshoot, from the minute someone gambles on locating a mine, to whether the inside of a piece of rough is as great as it seems on the outside, to whether a stone will hold together during faceting, through all the other risks and pitfalls involved with cutting, transporting, and marketing stones. This element of risk continues right on down to the consumer.
Generally speaking, my sense is that the attitude among this world of gem dealers is: If you know what to look for, they can provide you with excellent gems. However, if you don’t know what you’re doing, they are not going to go out of their way to enlighten you. Never has the motto, “Let the buyer beware” applied so aptly as here.
On my Heart of Stone Studio website, I do my utmost to present really top-quality cabochons, faceted gems, and drusies. If the stone is less than perfect, I disclose that right up front. Not every retailer will do that, but it has really proved worthwhile for me in return business because my customers know they can trust me. And that’s why I’m writing this blog, because I think we can all benefit from being better educated about gemstones. I’m learning all the time!
In my next post, I’ll try to explain how I evaluate the cut of a faceted stone.
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