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02/28/10
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New Rough gems
Precision Gem Blog

New Rough from Tucson

14/02/10 21:02
Todays posting has some of the new rough I bought while in Tucson, and also a tool that you may be interested in.

Once I got to Tucson, I realized I had left my dichroscope at home. It's a very handy tool for gem identification and also for buying rough. This tool is very easy to use. Most gems are double refracting and will show two colors through the dichroscope. When you look at the gem through the scope you will see two squares, with both different colors shown. These are dichroic stones. Some stones will show 3 colors, and these are trichroic. I paid $69 from Kassoy for this, and am selling it for $34. It's listed on the Other Gems page. CLICK HERE

DICHRO1

Next are a few pictures of some of the new rough I picked up and will be cutting. First are some green tourmalines from Afghanistan.

Rough1

Some large Apatite from Madagascar. These are a neon blue color.
Rough2

A few more Afghan Tourmalines.

Rough3

These stones were so pretty in the rough I had to buy them. They are Opal from Ethiopia. Some of these are very clear crystal and I will facet them, others maybe cabs, or maybe just pretty the way they are. The photo doesn't show the play of color well, these are very pretty stones.

Rough4

A parcel of Tanga garnets.

Rough5

Blue Zircon from Cambodia.

Rough6

Some Montana Sapphire from the Missouri River

Rough7

A large blue Topaz, just under 100 cts. I bought this from Lisa at the Gemology Online dinner get together. I'm thinking of sawing this one in half and cutting two Asschers from it.

Rough8

A few more Malaya garnets from Tanzania. I really like malaya garnet, and every year pick out a few of the best colors.

Rough9

There are lots more, I'll post more pictures soon.

Tags: Tools

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TUCSON 2010

03/02/10 21:52
I'm back from Tucson, and ready to get cutting again. The trip was short just a few days, but long enough to fit in what I needed. The shows with the rough start early, before the major GJX and AGTA. The crowds this year were less than the last few years, so it was quicker moving around, and less trouble finding a parking spot.

I'll post some pictures of the new rough I purchased in a few days. The highlights are certainly some very nice aquamarine from Mozambique. This was the first time in years I have seen some better blue stones. I bought quite a few pieces and a few larger stones with excellent color. I was able to find some very nice tourmaline from Afghanistan, and some blue sapphire from the Missouri River in Montana that was mined over 20 years ago. I'll have a complete listing up soon.

Tuscon_2010 5
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Nigerian Rough

30/05/09 13:58
I just got a new parcel of stones in from Nigeria. Most of the parcel is some of the Nigerian Paraiba type tourmaline. Here's a picture of a portion of the parcel. Most of these stones I'll heat to bring out a more neon color.

PariabaRoughWEB

A few new Nigerian Spessartite garnets. Very clean stones with a slight burn orange with a touch of red.

SpessartiteRoughWEB

This is a Nigerian stone from a different parcel, cut and before heating. I wanted to post this before picture, since today I'll put it into the oven and we shall see what we get. The stone should burn off the grey mask and produce a brighter light blue color.

881

And here is the after heating picture. It doesn't show that well in the photo's, but the before heating had a grey mask that is burned off, and the stone is much brighter now, with a slight neon glow.

881hw

This cut spessartite is the middle stone from the above rough picture.

882

This stone is from the new Nigerian Paraiba parcel, but not one of the stones in the above picture. About half the parcel was made up of stones with a very deep blue, but closed C axis. Here's one of them. The heating caused some stress inclusions, but the color a a very deep intense windex blue. The inclusions are less noticeable in person, the pictures always bring them out more.

883

Tags: Cuprian Tourmaline, Spessartite Garnet

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Malaya Garnet Rough

22/02/09 15:08
A lot of people have been asking about Malaya garnet lately, and the colors of these stones. Malaya is one of the most misunderstood and misidentified stones. In Nigeria they sell a cheap read garnet with a brown color to it, and call it Malaya. These stones are not Malaya, and are no where near the price of true Malaya garnets. A Malaya garnet is a mix of Pryrope and Spessartine garnet. As such, the refractive index will fall between 1.74 and 1.77. The higher the amount of Spessartine, the higher the refractive index will be. The finest stones come from the Kenyan Tanzanian boarder area.

The picture below shows some of my collection of these stones in the rough, and the various colors. Depending on your taste, you may prefer the more orange stones, or the more pink ones. They cut very brilliant gems, and are a rare stone almost never found in a commercial jewelry store, unless the jeweler really specializes in colored stones.

MalayaGarnetRough

I buy only the finest Malaya available, nothing too dark or off color, these stones will all cut exquisite collector gems.

Tags: Malaya Garnet

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New Rough and Cut Stones

20/08/08 22:02
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.

Umba_Sapphire

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.

Pink_Spinel

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.

Spessartite Garnet

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.

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

769

Tags: African Gems rough

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Shopping this past weekend...

31/07/08 22:43
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.


765
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Oregon Sunstone Rough

05/05/08 21:06
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.
OregonSunstone
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.
OregonSunstone2
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.
OregonSunstone3
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.
TanzSunstone
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

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