If you enjoy rare and precious gemstones and their related stories, here you will find a litany of gemstone ramblings, gemological observations, and useful and time-wasting trivia bought from behind-the-scenes in the rough and cut gem markets of Asia and Africa.
This huge size 18 carat unheated sapphire from Tigray in Northern Ethiopia shows a highly unusual type of golden silk. Usually silk in unheated sapphire is whitish in color and is composed of rutile a.k.a. titanium dioxide. This particular item is likely to have higher concentrations of hematite and ilmenite which is generally the most frequent companion minerals seen in…
Sneaking across the table of this glass-filled-ruby, is gossamer threads glass filling. A low quality highly treated gem, technically this is not a ruby. Sold be low quality stores such as Macys.
How a tiny dot tells a story A beautiful orange-pink sapphire, that some may choose to call a padparadscha, came across the table the other day in our buying office in the ruby and sapphire market in Chanthaburi, Thailand. The color was that perfect orange-pink with a slight hint of purple that its so reminiscent of the Lotus Flower. The…
Winza, pronounced Win-Za in its mother language Kiswahili, produced in my opinion the best ruby colors to be found in all of Africa.
In 2016, deep in the rainforest biomes of Eastern Madagascar, a sapphire deposit was found that yielded the most beautiful, softest yet mesmerising intense-blue colors found for years. So attractive was this material, that the SSEF even produced a Trade Alert warning that some dealers and labs were passing this fabulous new material off as Kashmir-origin sapphire. The Even the…
Before & After with heating pink sapphire. An interesting picture photographed with the staff of Mustang Resources, a large ruby mining company.
A 2 Carat Diamond, from the Marange Diamond Fields in Eastern Zimbabwe displays a shocking green fluorescence.
The Chameleon Zircon That Gets A Fading Suntan One week ago a huge and quite spectacular color zircon was bought to my office in Chanthaburi, Thailand, which was an intense and almost neon pure-yellow color — like mandarin color zircon. Showing a vivid yellow color, we photographed and videoed it, and amongst other places, posted it to Gemology Worldwide.
Fluorescence in Ruby
Enclosed