This round brilliant with a very flat crown was out of the collection for awhile because Jeff could not get a picture with any color out of it. I think he did better the second time around. The only reason I wanted it back in the collection is because it is different and really has a great sapphire blue flash. The stone is eye clean and shows a very good color when you look at it from the back, but you turn it over and the lack of transparency of the c axis deadens the center area under the table. Now as you twirl the stone you see bright sapphire blue flash along the edges of the girdle. Sometimes you get a flash from deep within the stone. It really does remind me of some natural sapphire I saw years ago that was just about as dark. The standard round brilliant weighs .86 carats.
Bruce
About Bruce Fry
I was born in Summit, NJ in 1947 and graduated from Summit High School in 1966. I graduated from the Colorado School of Mines in 1970 and after spending another year in graduate school, I left to see the world of Brazil. After spending some more time discovering myself, I ended up working for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania for 32 years as an Air Quality Engineer in the Department of Environmental Protection. I retired in 2007 and took up faceting gemstones again after a long hiatus that reached back to my twenties. I had started cutting cabochons when I was 13 and bought my first faceting machine when I was 15, but ran out of money and time until I retired.
My great love in gemology is tourmaline and the collection presented here represents my effort to get as much beauty and variety in the colors of tourmaline as I can. I was particularly lucky in being able to get unheated cuprian tourmaline before copper was discovered in gem grade tourmaline from Mozambique.
