Last month I received a very large spessartite garnet from one of my wholesale brokers — over 18ct! Spessartite this large is rather rare, but because of the cut and obvious inclusions, it just wasn’t selling for him. So, after some discussion, we decided the stone would be best recut to a more salable shape … Read More
I just wrapped up a fun recutting project. A client needed a 6mm square cushion yellow sapphire with fine color, high clarity and untreated (if possible). I was able to find a badly proportioned square at Tucson this year and was reassured by the vendor it’s untreated. I’ll be sending the stone to the AGL … Read More
Last Summer, I was commissioned by Drew of DWDesign in Janesville, WI to cut a danburite asscher for a wedding ring set. Drew requested a portion of the rough from the main stone be cabbed for the man’s ring. It was a little unusual, but I didn’t think much of it at the time. Now … Read More
Merry Christmas! Light Blue Cubic Zirconia. 41.88ct, 18.02×18.10×12.61mm. Synthetic. LC10. Christmas 2014. (CZ983) I had designed this as a snowflake, but found the Star of David at the center during computer modeling it. Seemed like a perfect Christmas project to me!
Recently I was commissioned to facet a very large and unusual sapphire from the El Dorado Bar diggings in Montana, USA. The stone came to me as a 3.17g rough. As it pretty typical for the Montana deposits, the stone was water-worn a crystal section. Unusual for the Montana deposits, the stone has a straw-yellow … Read More
In 2011, I purchased this zircon rough in Tanzania. Zircon from Singeda, Tanzania is often a super-saturated, near-black shade of red. In reflected light, the stone appears near-black, but it is red in transmitted light. I cut the stone in a cut-corner square brilliant of my own design. But this kind of zircon is so … Read More
Gem boxes come in various size and shapes — round (“gem jars”), rectangular, and square, each intended to both protect and display a loose gemstone. Most gem boxes are made of plastic; some have glass tops. They’re great for storage as well as shipping. All of this is common knowledge to anyone who has been … Read More
I finished recutting this sapphire for Wildfish Gems today. When I received the stone, it appeared to be an untreated blue-green sapphire (no surprise there; untreated stones are Ed’s specialty). But after I finished recutting the stone, I noticed that it looked very different under my desktop diamond grading light than it did on my … Read More
About a month ago, a client contacted me with a special project for his wife. He wanted to make a custom pendant for her using a gemstone that was both unusual and suited her as a geologist. After some discussion, we settled on green zircon. Zircon is both a visually interesting gemstone and an important … Read More
This morning there was a 2 hour delay for school, so I had the kids with me in the shop. My son, 10 years old, was helping me make some images of recent gemstones. I was letting him work the remote trigger on the camera & do some basic culling of rejected images. When he … Read More