Deeply cut bicolor, colorless crown, red pavilion, 6.60 carats.
Nice longer ratio emerald cut with bright red c axis, 4.51 carats
This is a GEM, an exceptional gemstone. It has everything including a secret. But first a question. How do you get a cherry red tourmaline that is a reasonable size without its tone value being dark or even too dark? Well you need to get an exceptional piece of rough and cut it the right way. That is being too general of course and there really are two ways to climb to the peak of the red mountain. Fortunately I have examples of both types in the collection, but I should not exclude reds that are pure and just need the proper sized for their tone level. But these gems tend to be dark in the larger sizes.
Now for the two ways to get a really nice cherry red rubellite:
1, Find a short stocky bicolor with red and clear sections and cut a round with the clear half in the crown and the red half in the pavilion. It doesn’t have to a round of course and the red doesn’t necessary have to be in the pavilion, but it certainly is easier to cut for me.
2, Find a dichroic red with a pale a/b axis and a rich red c axis. Then cut a nice emerald cut that does not have too long a ratio, so the red in the ends fills the whole emerald cut without getting too washed out in the middle.
The posted stone that is round is the first type of cherry red gemstone. It has a deep pavilion from being cut with a split main pavilion. The crown is exceptional deep in order to maximize the effect of having a colorless crown and a red culet. The red part of the gemstone maybe just extends half way up toward the girdle. It weighs a great medium toned, cherry red, 6.60 carats.
I am including my best dichroic red emerald cut as a second picture. It has a pretty long ratio and I am surprised that the red ends dominated the emerald cut so completely.
Bruce
