Zircon, Garnet, Lake Baringo
Mid October New stones
19/10/09 20:37 Filed in: Latest Cut
Gems
4
New Stones Tonight
A mixed bag of stones for today. The first one is a Zircon from Tanzania. When these stones are found, they are a rootbeer brown color. They are often heated right at the mining area as all that is needed is a candle. I heat mine after cutting, and do it in an oven so I can control the temperature better. The color on this one is a very nice yellow, and in person has a lot of dispersion... looks like a yellow diamond. (No you are not crosseyed! Zircon is double refractive, so each facet shows up 2 times. This effect is more pronounced in photo's than in real life however)
This next stone is a Lake Baringo Ruby from Kenya. These are fantastic stones, but are always very small. Any thing over 1 ct is very very rare. I had made friends over the internet with a fellow in Kenya, and had told him I was going to visit Arusha Tanzania. I get a knock on my door one night, and there he is with 3 friends. They had a small bag of these rubies and one very large tsavorite. The tsavorite was too dark, and included, and the rubies were too small for me to work with. I felt bad since they had traveled so far, so I picked out the 3 largest stones, and then gave them money for a room and a bus ride back home the next day. So here is the first of the 3 stones.
Call it a ruby or call it sapphire, the color is unique and you will never see this in a jewerly store around your house.
Next are 2 garnets, both from Tanzania, one Spessartite, and one Rhodolite. No boring story with these...
A mixed bag of stones for today. The first one is a Zircon from Tanzania. When these stones are found, they are a rootbeer brown color. They are often heated right at the mining area as all that is needed is a candle. I heat mine after cutting, and do it in an oven so I can control the temperature better. The color on this one is a very nice yellow, and in person has a lot of dispersion... looks like a yellow diamond. (No you are not crosseyed! Zircon is double refractive, so each facet shows up 2 times. This effect is more pronounced in photo's than in real life however)
This next stone is a Lake Baringo Ruby from Kenya. These are fantastic stones, but are always very small. Any thing over 1 ct is very very rare. I had made friends over the internet with a fellow in Kenya, and had told him I was going to visit Arusha Tanzania. I get a knock on my door one night, and there he is with 3 friends. They had a small bag of these rubies and one very large tsavorite. The tsavorite was too dark, and included, and the rubies were too small for me to work with. I felt bad since they had traveled so far, so I picked out the 3 largest stones, and then gave them money for a room and a bus ride back home the next day. So here is the first of the 3 stones.
Call it a ruby or call it sapphire, the color is unique and you will never see this in a jewerly store around your house.
Next are 2 garnets, both from Tanzania, one Spessartite, and one Rhodolite. No boring story with these...
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