Heart of Stone Studio Blog

How To Spot A High-Quality Cabochon

Hello, my name is Judy Kiriazis at Heart of Stone Studio and I’d like to talk to you about how to buy quality gemstones for the jewelry that you design or wear. 

I’ve been trained as a jeweler and have purchased gem cabochons for both my own jewelry designs as well as for my company Heart of Stone Studio, for more than 25 years, and I want to share what I’ve learned, with you.

While buying gemstones can be an exciting and fun experience, it also has a tremendous importance when it comes to enhancing the marketability and reputation of your own jewelry designs. The size, pattern, color, and shape of the stones you select will play an important role in helping you to create your brand, or signature look, as an artist.

There's a lot of jewelry being sold out there, and it's important that your work stand out. Beautiful gemstones not only attract the eye of the buyer, they also help to convey a level of quality that enhances your design and allows you to command a higher price point for your work.

As a metalsmith, I've learned that the investment of time and effort in making a stunning piece of jewelry calls for a beautiful stone to be its centerpiece. Otherwise, why waste your time with an inferior gemstone?

So here are my insider tips on what to look for when buying quality cabs. I’ll illustrate how characteristics such as color, pattern, and cut can make one piece well worth your investment, while other pieces—often from the same mine—are only worth passing up. 

First, look at color.

The color has to be rich and vibrant, and not dull.

Here’s a common Chrysocolla cabochon on the right. It’s has a nice triangular shape, but doesn’t have much of the  characteristic Chrysocolla aqua blue color.

On the other hand, this high-quality Chrysocolla cab on the left features rich, saturated shades of blue throughout the stone. You have to keep in mind that the miner is pulling tens to hundreds of pounds of rough material out of the ground, and only a relatively small fraction of it contains these colors. This is what you want to hold out for if you want to feature Chrysocolla in your jewelry.

Next, look at pattern.

The pattern has to be pleasing and interesting.

The stone on the right has a jumbled and muddy pattern, while the stone on the left has a well-defined pattern that is pleasing to the eye and stands out as something that is interesting and will catch people's attention.

Sometimes the pattern of a stone can be enhanced or diminished by its shape—A talented cutter can make a stone a winner by choosing a shape that enhances the pattern within. However, since many wholesale dealers base their prices on weight, the cutters who work for them need to cut the most stones they can out of a slab, to minimize waste.

Finally, look at types of cuts.

If you went to a gem show, you could immediately pick out the lesser-valued stones because they are either lopsided in shape or awkwardly cut. You want to look for pleasing, symmetrical cuts.

Ovals are usually a beginner’s cut, but it actually takes quite a bit of skill to cut this stunning, elongated oval of Sonoran Sunrise Jasper on the left. On the other hand, the stone on the right is an awkward shape that will not enhance a jewelry design.

Our Heart of Stone Studio website deals with the top cutters in the country, so we have a great selection of one-of-a-kind, artistic cuts like this.

 

 

In conclusion, it’s clear that there are several main characteristics to keep in mind when shopping for gemstones to set in jewelry.

They must have excellent color and pattern, good cuts, and must also be free of structural defects. And, they should contain the best characteristics for which that species of gemstone is known.

But, if you don’t know the top characteristics of a particular type of gemstone, how would you know what to look for? How do you know you’ll be getting your money’s worth?

Well there are two ways: One approach is to attend a lot of gem shows and be willing to risk making mistakes. Sometimes you'll find great deals, and sometimes you'll get taken. But after years of looking at hundreds, even thousands of stones, you'll get a good idea of exactly what characteristics to look for in each kind of stone you buy.

Or, the other approach is to find a trustworthy dealer, someone who does the hard work of sorting through thousands of gemstones and cherry-picking the absolute best of each type for you to select from. Someone with integrity, who can tell you what to look for and be upfront about the intrinsic value of each stone. Someone who guarantees your satisfaction with what you buy.

Where can you find a dealer like that? Well, at Heart of Stone Studio, we’ve done all the work for you. Stop by our website at www.heartofstonestudio.com and see our collection of top-quality cabochons for sale.

For more information, check out our YouTube video on this subject .

Fordite

Hello, I’m Con from Heart of Stone Studio. I would like to tell you about Fordite.

Fordite is known by several different names, such as Motor Agate, Motorcity Agate, and Detroit Agate. It is not a stone or a mineral, but is multiple layers of paint that were used in painting cars.

In the 1930s, the automobile industry started having workers spraying paint on cars, using stoving enamels, which are enamels that have to be baked to dry. In the 1950s, automobile companies started using acrylic enamels that needed to be baked at 360 degrees for one hour.

These acrylic enamels were sprayed on a car when the car was on a track with skids, and then the car, track and skids were guided into ovens where the paint was baked. Over time, slag from excess paint accumulated on the tracks. Since the paint colors were often changed to accommodate different colors of cars, there were layers upon layers of different colors paint deposited in the slag.

Eventually, the slag had to be removed and discarded.

At some point, workers discovered that if you slice vertically through the slag, you get bright-colored abstract designs. These could be incorporated into jewelry designs.

With that, Fordite was born. The slag actually came from a number of automobile companies, and not just the Ford Motor Company, but Fordite was a convenient name, and the name stuck.

In the late 1970s, the automobile industry developed a new way to apply paint, using an electrostatic process that magnetizes metal and has the paint adhere to the magnetized metal with virtually no paint loss.

That was the end of Fordite production, and no new material is available.

Because the Fordite slag was baked many times, the layers are very durable, but care must be taken not to bend or stress a cabochon because cracks can develop in the paint layers.

From a metaphysical standpoint, Fordite is said to help people get into the flow and the abstract patterns are said to help people generate new creative ideas.

We have a number of Fordite cabochons on our Heart of Stone Studio website, www.heartofstonestudio.com.

Check out our YouTube video on Fordite.

Amber

Hello, I’m Con from Heart of Stone Studio. I would like to tell you about Amber.

Amber is a fossilized tree resin. A number of different trees in prehistoric times produced resin that did not decay, the way that most resins do.

The resin underwent polymerization, with molecules combining to form networks called polymers. This made the resin hard. After several million years, the volatile oils that make resin have a characteristic smell evaporated, and oxidation and continuing polymerization created a fossilized resin with a Mohs hardness of 2 to 3.

While the resin was still fresh on the trees or had just fallen off the trees onto the forest floor, it was sticky. Various insects, spiders, other arthropods, and even lizards were either attracted to the resin and fell in,  or walked by and were caught by the stickiness. Plant parts were also blown in and stuck to the resin.

Because plant parts, insects, and other creatures were preserved extremely well by the resin, amber gives us a good idea of what some of the flora and smaller fauna was like millions of years ago.

Amber is found in many different places around the world.

In this post, I am going to talk about three different types of amber, labeled by the locations where they are found today.

The first is Baltic Amber. It is found along the southern edge of the Baltic Sea, along the coast of Poland and the Kaliningrad Peninsula of Russia. It is approximately 35 to 40 million years old.

Baltic Amber is usually a rich honey color, with variation in color going from yellowish to deep red. This amber often has inclusions in it, particularly insect inclusions and various plant parts.

It was used in jewelry since Stone Age times. Amber ornaments were found at Stone Age sites in Switzerland and France, and amber jewelry was found in Egyptian burials dating back to 3000 BC.

A more recent amber is Chiapas or Mexican amber, found in mines in the Simojovel area of Chiapas, Mexico. Chiapas amber is approximately 20 to 26 million years old.

This amber tends to be more yellow in color and somewhat more clear than Baltic Amber. Like Baltic Amber, Chiapas Amber often has inclusions of insects and plant parts.

Chiapas Amber was used by the Aztecs for jewelry, decorations, and utensils such as spoons.

A relatively new find of amber is Sumatran Amber, which comes from Indonesia. This is a younger amber, approximately 10 to 20 million years old.

It has a lot of color variation, from honey to red and black.

Unlike the other two ambers, Sumatran Amber does not tend to have insect and plant part inclusions. Instead, it often has swirls and spots of reddish colors, sometimes called leopard spots.

From a metaphysical standpoint, amber is said to transmute negative energy into positive energy, help with depression and stress, and increase prosperity.

We have a selection of amber cabochons at our Heart of Stone Studio website, www.heartofstonestudio.com.

Check out our YouTube video on Amber.