The emerald cut is dominated by the dichroic a/b axis. This color is a very pale pink that shows a touch of cream. The preferred color is the darker pink c axis, with a better saturation, but it was not practical to cut a stone with that color dominant. You do see it in the ends. This large stone cut beautifully and it really was a joy to polish except for a nick on the keel. The emerald cut has such purity and low tone level that the chip was distracting to me. I redoped the gem and tried to polish out the chip. I was successful in really reducing its size, but I can still see it. I don’t know if it is a weakness or what, but I may try and to repolish it again. For now I think most people would not notice the chip that bugs me up close. It is a ego thing. This large emerald cut weighs 17.6 carats and is without inclusions. Its tone level and pale pastel color certainly reminds me of pink/cream ice cream caped with a little pink sauce on the ends.
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.
