Picked out a different sphene\

[beaujolais]

Well, the cushion sphene came and went back. Half of it was a bit more brown than the other half (i think you call this zoning, correct?). Also, it seemed much smaller than the stated size, for some reason. Nice stone but just not it for me. I do like sphene, though, I've found. I just love dispersion.

This is the new sphene purchase:

http://www.forevergemstones.com/proddetail.php?ProdID=1497

I wanted to wait to ask you all but it just went on sale, so I figured I'd better grab it.

Did I do o.k.?

Thanks.

 

[Pandora II]

You won''t know until you see it IRL.

My worry from the photo is that the stone is very dark and so dispersion will be less than you are hoping for. The photo also looks a bit photoshopped to me.

Will be interested to see what it looks like when you get it.

Sorry to hear the first one wasn''t what you were after.

What do you plan to do with it? A pendant?

 

[beaujolais]

Thanks Pandora.

Darn. And I thought I got it right this time.

You know, in the back of my mind it did look a bit too luminous but I guess I just wanted to think, "Oh good, I found a nice one." ("We see what we want to see."

)

Well, crossing fingers. What does AAA mean? It has an AAA in the description of it.

I think it will be a pendant, gold bezel maybe. It''s 8 mms. and 2.25 cts, so that is nice.

Question: Opals and sphene are the same mohs. People put opals into rings. I really shouldn''t put a sphene into a ring?

Oh, I read that the setting on your Greenie was inspired by the Daniel K, which I love. It does remind me of it. People of good taste, we are.

 

[beaujolais]

This mounting:

http://www.stuller.com/products/product.aspx?s=21389

the side filagree view is pretty

 

[Pandora II]

Be careful with the bezel - I asked Revolution about that as I was thinking a bezel would offer more protection, but he advised against it as it''s quite a brutal way of setting compared with prongs and he didn''t recommend hammering so much near such a fragile stone.

What advice is your jeweller giving?

I''m interested to see what the stone''s like when it arrives. If it''s as it is portrayed it looks lovely.

Re AAA, as far as I know it means whatever the seller wants it to mean.

If you are buying calibrated melee from a Chinese supplier for example they may have A, AA, AAA which would designate the grades they were supplying - that doesn''t mean that their AAA will be the same as another dealer''s AAA.

For single stones I would just ignore it - chime in someone if I''m talking rubbish here!

 

[beaujolais]

Thanks Pan. That absolutely makes sense. But, I thought that I absolutely had read somewhere, repeatedly in fact, about putting more fragile or thin girdled stones in bezels to protect them. Hmmm ?

I haven''t bothered them about it yet. I figure that first I want to be sure that I find a stone that is staying. Will absolutely ask when I find *the one*.

Q: Why do they say not to put sphene in a ring but people do put opal in a ring and they are the same Mohs?

Thanks again for all your great help.

 

[coatimundi_org]

Date: 5/10/2008 3:01:19 PM
Author: Pandora II
Be careful with the bezel - I asked Revolution about that as I was thinking a bezel would offer more protection, but he advised against it as it's quite a brutal way of setting compared with prongs and he didn't recommend hammering so much near such a fragile stone.


What advice is your jeweller giving?


I'm interested to see what the stone's like when it arrives. If it's as it is portrayed it looks lovely.


Re AAA, as far as I know it means whatever the seller wants it to mean.


If you are buying calibrated melee from a Chinese supplier for example they may have A, AA, AAA which would designate the grades they were supplying - that doesn't mean that their AAA will be the same as another dealer's AAA.



For single stones I would just ignore it - chime in someone if I'm talking rubbish here!

Not rubbish, wise Pandora!

I'm under the same impression about "AAA." Individual vendors have their own designations which renders them meaningless--vast discrepancies.

Q: Why do they say not to put sphene in a ring but people do put opal in a ring and they are the same Mohs?

All sorts of softer stones are set in rings. (say that sentence out loud!)
If you were to set the sphene in a ring, how often would you wear it? Do you baby your rings/hands? Would it just be a special occasion kind of ring? I wouldn't set it in a ring for daily wear. (I wouldn't set a sphene at all--I'd just keep it to play with, but that's just me

) Same goes for opal. Opals are more commonly seen in jewelry--I rarely see a set sphene. I'd love to see more, though! From the photo, your stone looks to be a beauty!

Take care when having it set. The pavillion of my morganite was chipped during setting. The chip is still there--I have yet to unset it and have it polished. It is irksome.

 

[Pandora II]

It's all to do with cleavage and structure.

Opal is a 5.5 - 6.5 on the Mohs so it's quite a lot harder than sphene. It also doesn't have a crystalline structure in the same way as diamonds, or sapphires, or sphene etc do and so it therefore has no cleavage planes. If you whack an opal in the wrong way, you might chip it, but it's not going to split in two in the same way as a gem with cleavage planes will (not to say that you couldn't split an opal if you tried hard enough

)

Sphene (Titanite) is particularly brittle plus has cleavage in two directions and is only a 5 - 5.5 on the Mohs, so you want as little work going on round it as possible as setting is dangerous!

Bezels are good for protecting girdles and softer stones, but they have to be strong enough to withstand the setting process.

To be honest, it's one of those gemstones that are more collection stones than jewellery ones.

I do plan on wearing mine, but maybe only a couple of times a year. I'm eyeing up sphalerite at the moment, but that will be strictly a box specimen (It's only 3.5 - 4!)

Sadly most of the stones with the highest dispersion are soft - demantoid, sphene, sphalerite...

Zircon is one of the harder ones around.

I did see a synthetic rutile last week which was mind-blowing, almost too much dispersion. You can't get natural rutile in a size that would make faceting possible. It had a weirdish yellow colour, but was really interesting to see as it really shows what the material would be capable of. I had no idea that rutile had six times the dispersion of diamond - I always think of it as those fine needles in quartz. Again it's a very soft stone...

Hence why diamond is so popular - you get the dispersion and the hardness!

 

[beaujolais]

Wow, thanks Pandora. You are a wealth of information ! ! !

Have a Great Day !

 

[Pandora II]

LOL, no problem.

It''s actually really useful for me.

I have to get the books out and find easy ways to write things - which I need to do for my FGA exams.

I also hope that if I''m going wrong someone will call me on it so that I know I''m making errors!

 

[beaujolais]

p]
I have to get the books out and find easy ways to write things - which I need to do for my FGA exams.>

---

I had a feeling that was going on.

 

[chrono]

Date: 5/10/2008 10:33:33 AM
Author: sonomacounty

Thanks Pandora.

<My worry from the photo is that the stone is very dark and so dispersion will be less than you are hoping for.>

Darn. And I thought I got it right this time.

<The photo also looks a bit photoshopped to me.>

You know, in the back of my mind it did look a bit too luminous but I guess I just wanted to think, ''Oh good, I found a nice one.'' (''We see what we want to see.''

)

Well, crossing fingers. What does AAA mean? It has an AAA in the description of it.
There is no universally accepted standard for grading but an individual sellers'' description of gemstones. They range from A to AA to AAA to AAA+ or whatever but it tells me nothing.

I think it will be a pendant, gold bezel maybe. It''s 8 mms. and 2.25 cts, so that is nice.

Question: Opals and sphene are the same mohs. People put opals into rings. I really shouldn''t put a sphene into a ring?
If you don''t mind your sphene possibly chipping then feel free to do so. I would not.

Oh, I read that the setting on your Greenie was inspired by the Daniel K, which I love. It does remind me of it. People of good taste, we are.

 

[beaujolais]

Thanks Chrono !

If you don''t mind your sphene possibly chipping then feel free to do so. I would not.>

Oh, no, no, no. I had read that they were the same mohs, but that is not true. Also, I now know they have different properties. I don''t have the knowledge you all have - it was just a question.

Thanks for the info.

 

[chrono]

They ARE the same MOH but MOH does not tell the entire story. Just as jadeite is low on the MOH, its crystalline structure is incredibly strong (intertwining "fibers") so that it can be worn everyday even in rings, unlike a sphenes.