Recutting vs. revaluing

[PrecisionGem]

Are there any thread on this forum with something like "how to pick rough for faceting"? Looking for educational information on this one, and before and after pics.

1. Ebay is likely not the place to look for good rough.
2. It takes years of experience buying, and years to develop good sources for rough.
3 If the deal looks too good to be true, don't buy. Know one who has quality rough sells the material cheap.
4. Many times you will need to buy a whole parcel to get quality rough.
5. There is no such thing as a $10 rough that turns into a $1000 cut stone.

 

[7188429]

1. Ebay is likely not the place to look for good rough.
2. It takes years of experience buying, and years to develop good sources for rough.
3 If the deal looks too good to be true, don't buy. Know one who has quality rough sells the material cheap.
4. Many times you will need to buy a whole parcel to get quality rough.
5. There is no such thing as a $10 rough that turns into a $1000 cut stone.

That's what I expected, but I would still like to know how they are sourced and picked

 

[normanintheskywithsapphires]

I ran a query in my database of stones I did complete recuts on, and the average yield was 63.82%
Normally I like to do complete recuts rather than just touching up. Touch up recover7 is much higher, around 90%.

As a reference, my normal yield from rough stones is 33.4%. Keep in mind, I have bought thousands of pieces of rough, so I know what to look for, and am pretty selective on shapes of rough, so I get a pretty good recovery. Normally 25% is a good number to use when estimating yield from rough.

That is amazing data. Thanks for sharing. Keep it coming.

 

[PrecisionGem]

There are a few ways I purchase rough stones.

1. Travel to mining locations. This involves having some contact on the ground. Normally you will need to work through a gemstone dealer, and he will arrange for miners to bring in goods to show you. These trips alone are pretty expensive between airfair and lodging, so to make them worthwhile you really need to bring at least $20,000. All transactions are cash, so stuff your pockets! To get the stones out of countries such as Tanzania, you need to have your parcels inspected and sealed by the Ministry of Minerals and Mining. This again involves a fee.

2. Have contacts ship stones overseas. Most often these types of transactions are by Western Union, and involve buying parcels. Often it is impossible to return anything, so what you get is what you get. There needs to be some level of trust built up here, and these types of contacts can take some time to establish. Safe shipping can involve pretty steep shipping charges.

3. Gemshows such as Tucson. There are a number of rough dealers who attend the shows. These shows are the least stressful to work with, as travel is simple, and you can see what you’re buying. Here somethings will be only available in parcels, and parcels can be $1000 to over $100,000. Often single stones can be selected. Expect to pay a higher price when buying single stones.

It takes many mistakes in buying rough to get good at it. You need to know what things should cost, examine the stones and make an assessment of what yield you think you can get from the rough, and what finished stone could sell for. Often the rough is priced so high that it’s not even possible to cut a stone and recover what you paid for it, at least at the prices I would normally charge.
The really killer material is always priced with a really killer price. I have never seen a fantastic stone offered at a low price, and I have purhased thousands and thousands of rough stones.

 

[7188429]

There are a few ways I purchase rough stones.

1. Travel to mining locations. This involves having some contact on the ground. Normally you will need to work through a gemstone dealer, and he will arrange for miners to bring in goods to show you. These trips alone are pretty expensive between airfair and lodging, so to make them worthwhile you really need to bring at least $20,000. All transactions are cash, so stuff your pockets! To get the stones out of countries such as Tanzania, you need to have your parcels inspected and sealed by the Ministry of Minerals and Mining. This again involves a fee.

2. Have contacts ship stones overseas. Most often these types of transactions are by Western Union, and involve buying parcels. Often it is impossible to return anything, so what you get is what you get. There needs to be some level of trust built up here, and these types of contacts can take some time to establish. Safe shipping can involve pretty steep shipping charges.

3. Gemshows such as Tucson. There are a number of rough dealers who attend the shows. These shows are the least stressful to work with, as travel is simple, and you can see what you’re buying. Here somethings will be only available in parcels, and parcels can be $1000 to over $100,000. Often single stones can be selected. Expect to pay a higher price when buying single stones.

It takes many mistakes in buying rough to get good at it. You need to know what things should cost, examine the stones and make an assessment of what yield you think you can get from the rough, and what finished stone could sell for. Often the rough is priced so high that it’s not even possible to cut a stone and recover what you paid for it, at least at the prices I would normally charge.
The really killer material is always priced with a really killer price. I have never seen a fantastic stone offered at a low price, and I have purhased thousands and thousands of rough stones.

Thank you!

 

[normanintheskywithsapphires]

Same here. Thanks! Great info. More adventures calling....

 

[7188429]

I'll hijack my own thread a little so I don't have to start a new one... Is there a clever way to cover up or hide inclusions when re-cutting a gem?

 

[minousbijoux]

So the Trade member cutters that have weighed in here and offered you advice can also be found on another forum geared more to those working in the trade, as this site is devoted to us consumers and hobbyists. Although we are not allowed to provide a link to that other website, I guarantee that if you do a search for "gemology forums," it will likely be the first site that is returned. They have threads on all sorts of things related to cutting stones and the lapidary arts. You'd be better off asking the questions there.