[snip]
A friend of mine, a gem cutter who used to teach at GIA, says that he purposely leaves discreet inclusions, or "finger prints" in his stones, even when he could cut them to be flawless (of course, most would be smaller too) so that there will never be a question regarding the authenticity of his gems. Also, there are some gem species/materials that he will not touch these days because the treated stones and fakes are so difficult to distinguish (when he is on the fly and purchasing).
I've really learned to appreciate the "finger prints" of natural gems.
I think a case in point is green diamonds (pure green, from irradiation). Sometimes GIA cannot find anything decisive one way or the other, and then they issue a "non proven" verdict, calling it "undetermined color origin". (Jen - I hope you appreciate the simile)
really interesting everyone, thank you!
i was at an estate sale the other day and the nicest piece of jewelry there was a 2.43 ct round ruby in a really ugly 14k yellow gold ring with .6ctw round side diamonds offset from each other. they had an appraisal from a local jewelry store from 1979 that called it a "natural ruby" and appraised it for $2,600 back then. they were asking $650 for the ring and i was tempted, because the ruby was a really pretty deep red, but i didn't know anything about judging what a good ruby is. i've decided not to regret not getting it, but i do remember seeing a lot of very pink rubies in jewelry stores and not being impressed. this was pigeon blood red.
Well, you know, depending on how heavy the ring is, it may not be a bad purchase regardless of what the main stone is. You'll get back a few hundreds from scrapping the metal, and if the side diamonds are anything to look at, you have paid for the ring (as long as you have a use for them; no point in trying to sell them!). I would not trust a local jeweller to tell a recent synthetic from a natural ruby, but the synthesis methods have progressed a lot since the 1980s. The issue is that traditional Verneuil (flame growth) rubies are easy to spot, and that is what people look for, but there are lots of other methods beyond Verneuil now in use - some from the 1960s - and these are much tougher to detect. Still, if it's heavy and you like the centre stone, I'd be very tempted.
colored diamonds
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