Sphene -- Who Owns some, and do you have pictures?

[colormyworld]

While I have nary a sphene. I love the dispersion and secertly wish for one.

Amguy I thought I saw an image of Elvis in this stone of yours. Perhaps Ebay may be the place for this one. LOL

 

[colormyworld]

Lets try again.

 

[T L]

Date: 8/7/2009 7:17:31 PM
Author: colormyworld
While I have nary a spheen. I love the dispersion and secertly wish for one.

Amguy I thought I saw an image of Elvis in this stone of yours. Perhaps Ebay may be the place for this one. LOL

If you do buy sphene off of ebay, make sure it''s doubly refractive. In other words, the facets, when seen through the stone, seem to look like they''re split in two. You can see this in my photo of my oval sphene above.

 

[colormyworld]

That STRONG DR is what I have a tough time with. The blury look is not my thing. It kind of reminds me of the old days when sometimes I drank to much.

 

[Arcadian]

Date: 8/7/2009 1:14:41 PM
Author: Kismet
I have a small greenish one that I had made into a pendant, but *searches* I don''t think I have pictures of it here at work.

If you have time and inclination I would love to see it.

-A

 

[LD]

Here''s a couple of mine. I adore the fire you get from them - which is impossible to capture!

 

[Barrett]

LOL..it does look like someone..will have to keep an eye out for it when the rough gets here...hey LD that bottom pic loks good..see some fire there

 

[T L]

Date: 8/8/2009 2:21:21 PM
Author: amethystguy
LOL..it does look like someone..will have to keep an eye out for it when the rough gets here...hey LD that bottom pic loks good..see some fire there

It looks more like Quasimodo to me than Elvis - LOL!

 

[Arcadian]

Date: 8/8/2009 1:01:59 PM
Author: LovingDiamonds
Here''s a couple of mine. I adore the fire you get from them - which is impossible to capture!

Oh wow, gorgeous gorgeous!

Did you purchase them preset or where they purchased separately and then set?

-A

 

[Arcadian]

Thanks to everyone for showing me your sphene. I''m now the proud owner of a *cough*couple*cough*piece(s).

Will see how they look when they get here. Hopefully I won''t do anything as stupid as I did with the tourmaline.

-A

 

[chrono]

I thought it was a little bird or a bunny with the ears pulled back. Guess I failed the ink blot test.

 

[Barrett]

Ya know that sphene rough i posted..i said it should be here in a week or so in one of my earlier post....well, I got a call yesterday from..guess who..customs in New York city...come to find out they flagged the package because it''s marked commercial semi-precious stones with a value over $200...I spent half the day yesterday on the phone trying to figure out what was going on since i have never had this happen before with any of the 90+ odd packages of rough and stones from all countries..come to find out I have to get hire a broker in new york to get the package out of customs..so far the total cost is $160..boy was a PO''d yesterday..I hope things turn out better today...what really chaps me is why this package got stopped when the value was only $695 and packages from the same guy and others in pakistan worth and marked 10 times as much were never stopped or flagged? This is just a sample of the sphene to make sure the quality is good and plannd on getting more but now i have second thoughts..how much do I have to pay if it gets flagged and the package is worth $3000? all for some rough stones

 

[chrono]

Goodness, I’m sorry to read about your troubles, AmGuy. This sample package is turning out to be more expensive that initially expected. I guess customs decided to work extra hard that day.

 

[brandy_z28]

Date: 8/18/2009 6:16:58 AM
Author: amethystguy
Ya know that sphene rough i posted..i said it should be here in a week or so in one of my earlier post....well, I got a call yesterday from..guess who..customs in New York city...come to find out they flagged the package because it''s marked commercial semi-precious stones with a value over $200...I spent half the day yesterday on the phone trying to figure out what was going on since i have never had this happen before with any of the 90+ odd packages of rough and stones from all countries..come to find out I have to get hire a broker in new york to get the package out of customs..so far the total cost is $160..boy was a PO''d yesterday..I hope things turn out better today...what really chaps me is why this package got stopped when the value was only $695 and packages from the same guy and others in pakistan worth and marked 10 times as much were never stopped or flagged? This is just a sample of the sphene to make sure the quality is good and plannd on getting more but now i have second thoughts..how much do I have to pay if it gets flagged and the package is worth $3000? all for some rough stones

OUCH! That stinks amethystguy! Hope you get that issue resolved quickly and cheaply!

 

[Arcadian]

that is crazy amguy! You would think with all the stuff that gets shipped without so much as being opened they would have picked something other than a box of rocks right? The only time I ever had a problem with customs is when I was shipped an empty cigar box (wasn''t even cuban!)


Hopefully things will get resolved quickly. I totally get why you''re peeved, I would be too!

-A

 

[Barrett]

spent all day on thje phone..i have to fax power of attorney form to a broker today and then mail a MO for $180 tomorrow to JFK airport..duty fee...tax on this..tax on that..i spoke with my dude who shipped to me and he is beside himself..I yelled(well email yelled) at him for using this courier serive..WB Forwarding who was supossed to ship Fed Ex but used Quatar Air and shipped with tons of other imported goods which means mine gets taxed with all the other stuff so not only is mine taxed but i have to pay a percentage of total tax on all items which adds on to my total..jeez it has been such a hassle..he is apologetic so next time he will ship DHL or UPS like normal folks do and there won''t be a problem and he will throw in a lot of tourmaline or more sphene to make up for it..he is also contacting the courier he used to recoup my cost of $180..the problem is I split this batch with a buddy as a test baaatch to mke sure pieces were good and cuttable..what do i tell him??tack on another $90 bucks to what I told you to cover customs? I can''t do that..so hopefully when I get another batch of rough from my guy he will hook it up and hopefully recoup my cost of $180 from his courier...poor guy is a good person and he feels horrible that this happened especially when we have done business many times..I guess one good thing is I learned a little bit about customs and the whole deal and getting a customs broker(a broker for a box of rocks..how stupid..cut stones maybe but rough rocks)..I am sure it will be like another week at least if not more till i get the package

 

[chrono]

I’m sorry for the painful lesson learned. At least the guy feels some responsibility for it and offered to make some amends in the near future.

 

[Pandora II]

I adore sphene - so sad it is so soft as I''d wear it more often,

DH gave me a pendant (3.70ct oval - was over 4ct, but Richard Homer recut it for me) and matching earrings (just over 1ct each) as a wedding gift. Richard sourced the stones for me at Tucson and Wink set them in 18ct yellow gold settings from Stuller.

They weren''t cheap and I was very nervous while they were being set, but Wink''s bench did a great job and they survived the setting process.

Sadly they are a bugger to photograph and show terrible extinction that isn''t there IRL. They have the most incredible fire. Here''s a link to some photos...

 

[Arcadian]

That pendant is out of this world! wow wow wow

Thanks for sharing pandora!

I bought a few pieces (pretty much cheap thrills) and my only regret is that I didn''t get bigger ones. The colors are ridiculously fab in real life, and its so hard to capture (forget about using macro)



-A

 

[Barrett]

Pandora nice stone..that third pic you can see all kinds of colors towards the bottom of the stone..gotta hate the extinction..makes a stone look bad when you know it''s not..very nice!!!

 

[brandy_z28]

very nice pandora!

I was able to capture a better one of my sphene today.

 

[Arcadian]

Wow brandy! GORGEOUS

I''m going to have to try a sun picture tomorrow if its not blazing hot out.


-A

 

[Barrett]

Finally got my sphene today..took forever with stupid customs....most pieces have that honey color but some has a fiery orangish red type color..didn''t know that it came in that color to..here are a few pieces i pulled out..got 50 grams worth..to bad half goes to a buddy

 

[Barrett]

one of the pieces from my half..51.45cts. it has some inclusions along the periphery but the whole middle is clean..i would say about 32-36cts. of clean material in this piece

 

[VRBeauty]

Ooooh yummy! I have a few small, insignificant native-cut sphene (sphenes?). It''s a fascinating stone. The smallest stone is about 1 ct., a warm orangeish oval that seems to throw off soplight colors -- red, orange, and green.


Good luck with your cutting. I''m hope you''ll share your efforts (good and bad) with us!

 

[Arcadian]

Looks good amguy! I''ll be looking forward to seeing how you cut it!




-A

 

[chrono]

Am Guy,
The sample looks good, I like the cleanliness and the colour of the one you put up to the light.
Pandora,
I think your sphenes look great. It’s a pity it is so hard to capture what the eyes see.
VRB,
Thanks for sharing your picture. You ladies (and man) are tempting me to get one.