I thought you may be interested in a few of the new stones I bought this month. These are all from Tanzania Africa.
The first are some natural unheated Umba Sapphires in blues and violet colors. These should all cut stones from 1 to 1.5 or so.



This next parcel I couldn't pass on, even though the price was more than I liked. These are Spinels from the Morogoro area of Tanzania.



These bright orange stones are the new Spessartite Garnets that were just found this past year in Tanzania. The color on these is a bright fanta orange. This parcel are all pretty good size stones that will cut 2 to maybe 4 ct stones.



This last one is just a killer color pink sapphire. In Africa they call this ruby, but it's really a very intense magenta pink sapphire.



And last of all, the latest cut stone. Another one of the Tanzanian Spessartite. This one is 1.95 cts, very good crystal and color

Tags: African Gems rough

I spent the weekend with my main rough dealer from Kenya, and picked up some nice stones to work with. Rough was in pretty short supply, he had about 1/4 the amount he normally does, and of course the prices were up too. I'll try in the next few days to post some pictures of some of the more interesting pieces I was able to buy. Here's a partial list: Natural untreated Ruby from Tanzanian, Aquamarine in a medium blue, Umba Sapphires, some new sapphire from Lodwar in Kenya, a color change garnet, Iolite and a few others.

Here's one of the new Lodwar sapphires cut. These are all natural, unheated stones.

Here's a few photos of some Oregon Sunstone. This is how the stones look in the rough after a little cleaning up. A few of these I have saw cut some of the extra clear material away, just to save on some grinding time.

These first two pieces are from the Dust Devil Mine in Oregon. The stone on the left should have a really nice color once cut. The right could be interesting, or a mess. Sometimes when a stone show 2 distinct colors they mix and turn to a muddy color, or they can remain isolated and the stone could be a real winner. That half the fun of cutting.

These two stones have excellent color and very good crystal. They should cut will no schiller, and a deep saturated color. I'll grind all the outer clear material away first.

These are pretty typical for how the stone look in the rough, with all the color in the center. The top left looks to be the best of these 3.

These two stones are examples of the sunstone from Tanzania. Much different than the Oregon material. The specs are larger hematite flakes. The left stone could be faceted, the right one has so much hematite it will need to be cabbed.

Tags: Oregon Sunstone

We just received in a new shipment of the Spessartite garnet from Tanzania. These stones are a very bright fanta orange color. There are a variety of sizes and plenty of small stones to cut matched pairs for earrings. If you are interested in having some cut let me know.

Tags: Spessartite