Only Three More Days

There are only three more days until tax free day and our sale so I thought I might tempt you with a few new pieces that just came out:

 This first one is a boulder opal with an emerald and a sapphire.   I came upon the stone by accident.  (Long story).  

 These earrings have an orange spessartite garnet and a rhodolite garnet. The stones are two different colors and you can't quite see that in this picture but they're a fun pair of earrings.

 This is a beautiful aquamarine in a ring.  Unfortunately you can't have it as it's already been claimed. 

Since I sold the other super fine boulder opal the other day I decided to put out the second one.  Kady got the colors of the opal perfectly but the pendant itself is a little lost so as soon as I can I'm going to get another shot of it up here. So come on by!

Tax Free Day is Coming

Ethiopian Opal, Diamond and 18k Gold Earrings

Tax free day is coming August 16!  Well technically it's going to be tax free weekend but, since I'm never open on Sundays, for me it's only tax free day.   As many of my regular customers know I also have a sale associated with the day and I'm having it again this year.  Unfortunately, if you don't already own a piece of my jewelry you can't take advantage of the sale as it's only for my existing customers.  But that doesn't stop you from taking advantage of the tax savings and if you don't yet own a piece of mine it's a great time to get added to the list for next year by taking something home with you. 

I have been busy turning out some new items for the case as well in preparation for the event so I do have some new things out in the cases.  Unfortunately some of them have already been claimed (as we allow you to come in early and put stuff aside with your credit card number to be rung up on the 16th).  The opal pendant in my recent posting with the super fine opal has already sold and I had a new pair of Ethiopian opal earrings (pictured above) made up as well that have already been claimed. This doesn't mean I don't have some other new things and I have a number of pieces in process. 

So come on by!!

18k Gold and Tsavorite Garnet Earrings

Rubies and the New Opal Pendant

Australian Boulder Opal, Ruby and Emerald Pendant in 22k and 18k Gold

In my last article I promised a picture of the new boulder opal piece I got in recently and here it is!  The stone, as you can see from the picture is really pretty outstanding.  It has a couple of rubies and an emerald on the bottom.  And the rubies bring me into today's topic.


This is something I've discussed before but because I have noticed a number of articles about the topic on social media of late it seems to be coming into the mainstream consciousness.  There were a couple of news exposes (these are what are being reprinted on the social media venues) about glass filled rubies being sold, undisclosed for the most part, in the major jewelry chains.  In my previous article on this topic I went into this issue here.  But it's worth revisiting.

1.37 ct. Ruby and Diamond Ring

So the first thing you should know about ruby is that it is a form of corundum.  Sapphire is also corundum.  Ruby is simply the red variety of it.  Red is also the rarest color that it occurs in so rubies are consequently more expensive.  As with many of the other fine gem materials today the price of high quality goods has been skyrocketing.  This is happening with ruby for a number of reasons.  The first is simply that it is a relatively rare gem.  The second, as with opal, is that the Asian market has expanded so dramatically and they are always most interested in the highest quality of goods.  The third is that the United States banned importation of ruby and jade from Burma (Myanmar) a couple of years ago in a quixotic attempt to force regime change in the country (note that now that it has undergone some significant changes the law hasn't been changed back).  Burma is without a doubt the source for the finest ruby available.  The ban has meant that dealers here in the states have been unable to purchase new material and are either working off of old stock or buying pre ban stock from other dealers.  There are other factors as well impacting the price today:  better mining practices which inevitably mean higher retrieval costs and higher labor costs, higher transportation costs, third world nations are no longer letting their resources be removed from their country free of tariffs and taxes, etc.

As always, when the cost of something that a lot of people want rises dramatically, someone comes up with a way to make money on it, often through shady business practices.  In the case of ruby, since there was such a dearth of fine material, the process used to heat treat goods was used far more aggressively and on far lower quality material.  There is material that would in the past have been tossed into the garbage that they realized if they heated it aggressively enough could be made to look far better than it actually is.  The process used to over heat this material ends up infusing the flux into all of the cracks and fissures in this low grade material where it turns into glass.  Some of the material has so much of this glass in it that the head of one of the major gem labs said a few years ago that: "we don't know whether to call this ruby with glass in it or glass with ruby in it".

If you've been reading my blog long enough you know that many, if not most, gem materials are being treated in some form or another.  So you might then ask what is the problem with this particular treatment?  Well first of all, if the stone is more glass than ruby there is the primary question of whether or not it should be called ruby to begin with. The second issue is that the glass flux in the stones can be dissolved in anything mildly acidic such as lemon juice or vinegar so normal everyday wear is pretty much out of the question, even though ruby is normally considered a fairly durable gem material.  If you own one of these stones in a ring you will see distinctive changes in the look of it fairly quickly. 

The largest problem with this whole issue is, once again, disclosure.  The purchasers of these goods are not being told that the material they are buying has been so aggressively treated nor are they being told about the special care needed in wearing the stones.  Because this material is so cheap (and trust me, if you see a 1 ct. ruby these days being sold for less than $500 you can pretty much be assured it's one of these stones) and it LOOKS good, people are buying it.  Unfortunately most consumers simply don't know enough about high quality gems to even ask the questions about the material.

The jewelry industry is, in this case, more than deserving of a lot of the blame.  Not only do most chain stores seem completely disinterested in disclosing treatments (or educating most of their sales staff) but the industry's self policing organization itself is in part to blame.  There is an organization known as the Jeweler's Vigilance Committee that is supposed to help police the industry over a number of issues including disclosure.  Unfortunately the JVC and I parted ways a few years ago when they announced that they didn't believe heat treatment of rubies needed to be disclosed.  Their logic went like this: Since almost all rubies are heat treated it doesn't matter if disclosure is made.  In my discussion with them, I pointed out that not a month earlier than they announced this decision, I had sold a fine 2 ct. natural color (unheated) ruby to a customer and that I had had absolutely no problem acquiring a half dozen unheated stones for him to look at.  While smaller stones are routinely heated it is still possible to get natural color stones so, as with all gem materials, full disclosure is necessary.  I pointed out to them at the time that their stance was going to lead to problems with the new flux infused material but they claimed it wouldn't be a problem.  A number of months later when more and more of the glass infused material was coming into the marketplace they came out with a new statement saying that material that might have durability issues should be disclosed.  Unfortunately by then the general feeling was that if the JVC says heat treatment in rubies doesn't have to be disclosed then this is just another form of heat treatment so why should we disclose it.

So what is the poor customer to do?  Well there are a number of things.  First of all, if it sounds to good to be true, it is.  So if you see someone trying to sell you a 2 ct. ruby for $1000, there is going to be a problem with the material.  Secondly, as I have said so many times in the past, buy from someone you can trust and with whom you have recourse if something is wrong (so don't buy something when you are overseas).  If possible look for reputable retailers who are members of the American Gem Trade Association (I am) who insist that all treatments be disclosed.  And then ask a lot of questions.  If the sales people don't really seem knowledgeable about topics like treatments buy somewhere else.  And quite honestly I wouldn't buy any significant sized ruby on line anywhere these days.  You just can't tell what you're getting.

The ruby ring in the picture has a 1.37 ct. oval ruby in it.  It has been heated but not aggressively.  Although it has a similar color to most Burmese material I don't believe that it is a Burmese stone.

Coming up soon:  Tax free weekend is August 16 and 17 this year.  My regular existing customers will know what that means.  Look for an email from us Friday!  In the next day or two I will have some pictures of a few more new pieces that are out.  

Opals

Carved spectrolite moon faces in 18k and 22k gold with diamonds

Happy summer everyone.  I hope many of you are getting some time off to refresh and rejuvenate.  We closed for the July 4th weekend and it was a nice break (although not nearly long enough).

I know it always sounds great to someone who doesn't have their own business to be self employed but, unfortunately it's not nearly as romantic or relaxing as it sometimes seems.  So even on my short four day break over July 4th I found myself doing business.  Not that it wasn't fun business, but it was still business.  My opal and pearl dealer was in town and when he is, he routinely stays with us.  I wasn't looking for much material but I always look at everything he has. 

What is becoming more and more apparent is that opal prices have skyrocketed in the last five years.  While the normal, commercial white opal hasn't seen this explosion in prices, the more unusual material like the boulder opal I use and black opal has just gone through some enormous changes.  This has happened across the board in these materials.  Low end material that I used to sell for $100 I would now have to sell for $3-400.  The problem with this is that it doesn't look any better than it did when I was selling it for $100.  The higher end material has also seen huge rises in cost.  Some of this rise is simply due to the burgeoning Asian market.  There is a vast amount of new wealth in Asia today and the Asian market has always appreciated fine gemstones.  Additionally there is a limited supply of fine material that can be mined and, unlike a diamond which is forever, a lot of opal material breaks down over time (usually a long period of time) so it isn't like a huge amount of old material will ever come back into the marketplace. 

So what's an opal lover (like myself) to do?  Well first of all I don't see prices going down ever.  Barring an extended world wide depression there is simply no reason for the prices to go down from where they are.  Mining costs in Australia will only continue to rise.  The market for fine material will continue to grow.  There will be less and less material being mined as sources are depleted.  So, personally I would buy it now before it gets even more costly. 

While we were going through my opal man's collection of better material (ranging in price from about $1500-$15,000) he was watching me as I would stop at certain pieces that attracted my attention more than others. When I finished he looked at me and told me that every piece I had stopped at was from his personal collection that he has begun to sell off slowly.  Leave it to me to appreciate only the best and most interesting ones.  Two of those pieces I bought because they were so unusual and wild looking (and affordable).  One should be out in a pendant within a week or so and I'll post a picture of it (although I'm not sure if we're going to be able to get the colors showing up properly).  The other one may go into my own personal collection. 

Please stop by if you'd like to see these two beauties!

The earrings above were a custom job for a customer late last year and were some of my few remaining carved spectrolite faces. 









                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        
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Alexandrite Again

Jellyfish Earrings

Four years ago I wrote a blog article about alexandrite.  It is still the most commented on blog I have written.  Unfortunately, although I have reread it a number of times to check for clarity it seems that a lot of the people who comment haven't been able to understand some of the things I said so I'm going to try again here and specifically deal with the issues that they are having a hard time understanding.

Natural alexandrite is one of the most expensive gem materials available (at least in fine qualities).  The stone is known as a "phenomenal" stone because it exhibits the phenomenon known as "color change".  This means that a gemstone, when exposed to different types of light sources (usually fluorescent vs. incandescent), will change colors.  Stones sold to you as alexandrite that do not display any color change are actually chyrsoberyl and not alexandrite.  The color change is from a greenish tone to a very slightly purplish red tone (red is the key word here).

Alexandrite can occur in large sizes but is extremely rare in large sizes.  High quality stones over 2 cts. will routinely run into the tens of thousands of dollars.  They have always been expensive.  There are basically only three major sources for them: Russia (which isn't a large producer anymore), Brazil (where the mine owners flooded the mine a number of years ago because of the number of deaths at the mine---due to the high value of the goods not due to the dangers of mining----this mine might have been reopened more recently but I'm not sure about that) and Sri Lanka.

So here's the deal:  If you have a large stone in your possession that changes color, unless you come from considerable wealth, you most likely do not have an alexandrite.

In the 1890's synthetic corundum first came on the market.  By the middle of the 20th century there was a vast amount of color change synthetic corundum coming into the marketplace that was often sold as alexandrite (both mistakenly and in an attempt to deceive).  This material was routinely 1) large, 2) cut in very regular sizes and 3) exhibits a bluish green to purple color change.  Let me repeat number 3:  It exhibits a bluish green to purple color change.  Alexandrite exhibits a greenish/red color change.

So if you have inherited a really large color change stone, and there is no red/green color change you don't have an alexandrite; you have a synthetic sapphire.  It doesn't matter if it came from your parents, grandparents or great grandmother.  They had these stones then too.  If you bought a really large color change stone and there is no red/green color change you don't have an alexandrite.

It is an incredibly easy test to determine the difference between corundum and alexandrite.  Any semi competent gemologist (and most competent jewelers) can tell you which it is in minutes, assuming they even need to test the material. 

As I explained in the original article on alexandrite there is synthetic alexandrite that exhibits all of the same phenomena as natural alexandrite (as it is actually alexandrite, just made by man) on the market today.  This was a much more recent development and the material is not nearly as inexpensive as the synthetic corundum.  This is harder to separate from natural alexandrite because it shows the same colors as natural material.  For this kind of distinction you may need a gem lab to look at the material.  But again, they don't generally produce it in large sizes.

If you are interested in color change gems but don't want to pay the price for alexandrite, I routinely have natural, color change sapphires that change from a bluish tone to a purplish tone.  There is also color change garnet available in the markteplace. 

I do really hope that someday someone will bring in a stone for me to look at that turns out to be a large alexandrite, but it hasn't happened in the past thirty-five years so I'm not holding my breath.

I have a new pair of my jellyfish earrings out.  The picture above is of the original pair but the new ones are similar.