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Culets and keels and a chip off the old block with tourmaline.
Chipping One of the most disappointing failures that can happen while cutting a tourmaline gem is for the culet or keel to chip. This can happen after you have partially polished the pavilion or while cutting the pavilion. Which varieties of tourmaline are prone to...
Clarity and how I see things.
Even though the world of diamonds and the world of colored gemstones share only the most basic of similarities, some of the grading of diamonds sneaks into the colored gem terminology. The most egregious is the use of the whole list of acronyms such as VS1 (very small...
Afghan mine run lot and a long path to a small gem.
At age 15, in 1962, I purchased my first faceting machine. I cut a relatively small number of mixed varieties of gems into my twenties. Running out of money for the hobby and facing many other obligations for my time, I did not facet again until a little over 20 years...
Saturation change of different tourmaline (vividness) due to different light sources.
I have written about color change in tourmaline a lot on my website because the discovery of Laurellite, a cuprian tourmaline from Mozambique that has a reverse Alexandrite color change, is a principal reason for this site's existence. The strong effect of different...
Kenya, golden yellow/orange, and breaking up is easy to do.
Some relationships are not worth pursuing and other ones will stand the test of time. In 2020, the year of the virus, it became very difficult to obtain rough from the only supplier that has weathered all the storms for twenty years. I hungered for work and a breath...
Indicolite Indictment
A Tourmaline Tale of Sad and Glad by My Lady Pink This report is an attempt to bring the excitement and drama of a youtube video that went viral just a couple of days ago to a wider less connected audience. It focuses on the cutter’s behavior and its impact on an...
Dusk and a Pastel Seedless Watermelon
Nd obtaining all the colors of tourmaine I I think that nature’s gift and the name, watermelon, given to tourmaline with a core of pink coated in green after a thin layer of colorless crystal is a fantastic combo. It has sold a great deal of low grade tourmaline and...
Sweet Saucy Little Blue Green Preform
A tourmaline tale of sad and glad By the Cutter She was a sweet saucy little blue green preform and I tried to ignore her. But every time I would look over my stock of smaller rough, she would grab my eye. But I was not doing ovals. But I had many more expensive...
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