What do you think about these sapphires?

[b_b]

Wow, quite a bit of new discussion! Very interesting indeed. I''m glad I found this website, as it continues to be incredibly helpful to me.

The finished ring is due to be completed this Saturday and I hope to have some pictures taken and posted before I leave on my vacation next week. Unfortunately, I seem to have misplaced my camera.

Anyway, I had one of the best custom jewelers in Chicago create this ring for me and it is modeled after the new Movado diamond ring that I saw in an advertisement recently. It should be spectacular!

 

[rubydick]

I should also add that Bob Genis'' Gemstone Forcaster Newsletter is one of the finest sources of up-to-date info on colored gems that I have ever read. Highly recommended. See it here:

National Gemstone Forecaster

 

[mogok]

Date: 12/9/2004 4:19

9 PM
Author: bar01


Mogok,

I am just a lowly consumer - but I have heard this before from you that there is no correlation between Origin and Quality. Is that entirely - 100% true?

Haven't Hughes - and Wise - and Newman in their fine books - attributed (in a general manner) qualities and characteristics to different sources?


Examples.... 'Burma Sapphires have a deeper richer color...' 'Kashmir is cornflower velvety' 'Thai Rubies have more black extinction'. Now these are talking about the 'best examples' from these sources - so you can still get bad ones from them.

See these links

http://ruby-sapphire.com/r-s-bk-quality2.htm

http://secretsofthegemtrade.com/chapter_22_o1.htm

As I understand it, the new sources from Africa are blurring these distinctions – but is it fair to completely dismiss different origins as having different (and perhaps more desirable - to certain people) qualities? Or is it all up in the air these days as you say with with so many new sources and different types of stones coming out of the same mines?

However, I have learned that it does really come down to the color and characteristics - and not origin - in the value.

Hello Bar01,
Yes I said that: Quality and Origin should not be related and Orrigin is not a statement of quality... I still completly agree with that.
Just to illustrate this I can tell you that this week end I saw some beautiful sapphires with an exceptional quality in Houay Xai in Laos: Great field trip with some of my students...
but...
Who knows about this origin?
Very few people!
And thats a shame as the stones there are really exceptional by their clarity and present a very attractive color!

The fact is that old mining areas are famous as many excellent stones were found there already. New mining areas are less known (and more suspicous to many) as they dont have yet pleased so many people.
But a beautiful stone is a beautiful stone... whetever the place that it has been mined from!

Dont get me wrong: Origin is not bad also: I love to know were my stones are from. It give to a stone a special perfume, a landscape, a culture...
When I see a sapphire from Mogok I remember my trips to this gem wonderland and I can imagine my stone mined near Kyauk Pya that monastery, one of the most beautiful spots in Mogok in the center of the sapphire mining area:

Now if the stone is from Pailin, images of streams going down from old volcanoes covered by deep jungles come to me:

Kanchanabury? I remember my week ends on the river Kwai on this lovely floating hotel near a Mon village...
Houai Xai? I remember the Mekhong and its banks, the Lao villages, the rice field, the small black pigs running everywhere...
Origin is something... Its romance! Not a quality label...
But romance helps dealers to sell!

I've have some "fish tank" stones from Mogok and from Kashmir, I have seen also beautiful specimens from there but it is not a reason for me to say than Mogok rubies are better than their Thai or African cousins. These stones present some differences but to my knowledge there is no world wide accepted quality grading system, just some experts opinions... and as I read with each Ana post:

"The greatest experts are only as good as the sum total of what they have seen." [Souren Melikian]

All the best,

 

[mogok]

Date: 12/9/2004 6:53:24 PM
Author: Robert Genis
For example, the lab is looking for intersecting rutile at a certain degree or angle. If they see this, along with other characteristics, the stone is given a Classic designation. However, you can also get a Burma sapphire without intersecting rutile, for example, but with rutile and it will receive an unheated Burma designation. Does it really matter to collectors? Not really because, as you said, Mogok is the prime locality for sapphire.
Burma Ruby
Here it is more critical. What most collectors want is Classic Burma. If it doesn''t state Classic Mogok, the stone does not have the certain optical, physical, chemical and inclusion characteristics or the material might be from Naniazeik, Nanyarseik, Nanyazeik or Naniazeit, Nayar or Nanyar. Pick a name! Therefore, the trade deems a Classic Burma more valuable than a straight Burma. I have noticed the electric red pinks tend to get this more then the purer reds. Of course, most people use this color to describe the color from Nayar or Nanyar.
Anyway, I hope this sheds some light on the differences between the designations.

Hello Robert,
Sound weird your story of intersecting rutile... I''m a little bit confused here about the use of rutile needles intersecting with each other as a way to differentiate gems from different localities or qualities...
But well i used to say to my students that a "classic Mogok ruby" present some rutile needle nests and calcite crystals?

Regarding to Namya gems along with the pinkish red specimens there are also some very dark red rubies and some colorless and blue sapphires. It is now 2 years that I tell myself that I should do something about all the stones and datas I''ve collected there... Thanks to remind me that!

By the way I wanted to tell you that really like your gemstone forecaster newsletter!
Excellent work!

All the best,

 

[b_b]

Here''s a pretty large photo of the new ring.  It looks almost like the two top facets are scratched, but I''m guessing that that is just finger oil or something (can someone confirm?).

My New Ring

 

[widget]

Oooooh Oooooh! It''s GORGEOUS! The color of that stone is breathtaking..

I can''t see the "scratches" you are referring to...but I think it highly unlikely that it''s scratched.

Congratulations! And thanks for posting the final results.

widget

 

[bar01]

Hey,

Sorry your thread got highjacked - and I contributed to it !

The color is just amazing. And the ring setting is very nice.

I do see the "haze" you mention - I doubt this is scratches either. Sapphires are very hard.

Your gal is going to be amazed with this E-ring. Has she seen it yet (asked the big question?)

Congrats !

 

[b_b]

Thanks!

The ring is currently sitting on the finger of my fiancé, if that answers your questions.

 

[chantal990]

Wow what a great looking stone. And what an interesting thread.

 

[mogok]

Yes: Nice ring!

 

[valeria101]

Date: 12/14/2004 8:57:21 PM
Author: b_b

Here''s a pretty large photo of the new ring. It looks almost like the two top facets are scratched, but I''m guessing that that is just finger oil or something (can someone confirm?).

Wow!

Not sure what the "scratches" may be. Sometimes grain lines show on some facets that fall across the grain and do not take perfect polish. The good looks of this sapphire do not seem affected in the slightest, so... even if I guessed right, this is no real problem. Besides, the kind of birthmark is common, as far as I know.

 

[rubydick]

Date: 12/14/2004 8:57:21 PM
Author: b_b
Here''s a pretty large photo of the new ring.  It looks almost like the two top facets are scratched, but I''m guessing that that is just finger oil or something (can someone confirm?).

My New Ring

Could be polishing lines on the facet, could be grease streaks from the cloth it was cleaned with, could be silk reflecting from inside the stone. But one thing is clear. That''s a helluva stone. You did well!

 

[Colored Gemstone Nut]

Good Job B!

The Burma stone is breath taking with rich color. Absolutely Awesome...

 

[strmrdr]

awesome!!

 

[windowshopper]

i dont see any scratches>?

 

[strmrdr]

Date: 12/17/2004 12:14:33 PM
Author: kashmirblue
A beautiful sapphire is a beautiful sapphire. Although some people prefer to set themselves apart with a name.

Thats what I keep saying buy the stone not the paper.
The paper just helps determin the cost of entry.

 

[mogok]

Date: 12/17/2004 7:12:17 PM
Author: strmrdr

Thats what I keep saying buy the stone not the paper.
The paper just helps determin the cost of entry.

I could not agree more...