Why is heat treating rubies bad?

[valeria101]

Date: 8/10/2005 2:15:30 AM
Author: maxspinel

Will gems follow its footsteps eventually since chemically identical synthetics are available at a fraction of the price?

Syntetics have been around for soooo long... for anything except diamonds. Those are new. Their chance to change the world must have passed. True enough for Al, but the use of colored gemstones does not thrive on quantity - so the comparison is limited at least in this way. There must be more interesting things to say about syntetics though - this one just happened to come forth.

And there is hardly a 'flood' of heated pieces like the one mentioned by Richard

Heating is a very old story itself... for what that matters. By now it didn't make ruby & sapphire trivia in a few centuries, and for all the good reasons.

I wonder if the world would even be very different without all this heat ...

 

[Cave Keeper]

Date: 8/9/2005 10:05:56 PM
Author: Edward Bristol

The traditional chaos in the multi (10+) level supply chain does all to prevent consumers from really choosing.

:

Also, the last years have shown that we are far from understanding or even ex-post tracking of all that is going on in the Asian treatment industry. Let alone new processes around radiation and diffusion in Indonesia or China.

:

From the points of view of those who earned billions over the decades burning Geuda into sapphire and those who have their safes full of treated stones that is very understandable. Anually 18 tons of Geuda are exported from Sri Lanka. That''s a lot of sapphire!

:

All in all, we are just beginning to guess the tip of the iceberg.

To actually give consumers a choice the whole gem trade would have to be straightened out and reorganized. (as done in the food industry, garment or electronics over the last 50 years)

Given the speed of social and economical change in countries like Sri Lanka or Madagascar and the mentioned economic counter forces in the trade itself, I would say this will need another few decades.

Surely the gem trade will be the last industry to join modern times but the web helps.

Edward Bristol

www.wildfishgems.com

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Date: 8/8/2005 8:22:51 PM
Author: Richard Sherwood
Cave, there has been no "collapse of the gemstone markets". Far from it. Colored stones are more popular than ever, and prices are steadily increasing.

Additionally there is no "sudden appearance of countless thousands of fantastic looking sapphires and rubies on the Net". And as Richard W. points out, there is unlikely to be in the future, as a fine treated stone requires an original product of certain specifications.

Gems are rare, both treated and untreated.

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Date: 8/9/2005 10:27:11 AM
Author: Richard W. Wise
:
Concerns about rarity are secondary.
:

=========================================

Well, I''m glad to learn the gemstone market is not in a state of collapse.

And I hope the spread of the Gospel Truth will be slow enough to enable me to offload all those barrels of Diamonds, Emeralds, Pearls, Rubies and Sapphires lying around the floor of my cave before the gemstone market collapses.

Is it true, as pointed out by Richard (Sherwood), that a mediocre stone will not change into a fine stone displaying fineness internally after treatment? Maybe there''s hope after all.

 

[Cave Keeper]

Date: 8/10/2005 3:47:52 AM
Author: valeria101

Date: 8/10/2005 2:15:30 AM
Author: maxspinel

Will gems follow its footsteps eventually since chemically identical synthetics are available at a fraction of the price?

:
And there is hardly a ''flood'' of heated pieces like the one mentioned by Richard

:

To be fair to Richard, though he might have said that treatment allowed the masses the opportunity to get their hands on the more desirable colors, or something like that, he didn''t claim that treatment has resulted in a ''flood'' of heated pieces (it was me).

 

[mogok]

Hi all,
I just read this very interesting topic as I was away for a while and would like to add my opinion on this subject that really passionate me.
Are treatments good or bad?
One of my old chemistry teachers used to tell our class in university that to advance in science, the important thing is not to find the good answers but to get the good questions…
I asked myself this question for many years. Slowly as my knowledge about gems, gem mining, gem treatment methods and the gem trade increased, I’ve build up an opinion that many here may be does not share:

I get more and more favorable to the concept of treatments, on the other hand if I have to buy a gem for myself, I would buy only an untreated gem!
A little bit complex.
I would like to explain you why…

Ok it will be long… Sorry, for those who might get bored or afraid with such a long French-glish post! LOL

I agree completely with Richard Sherwood that if treatments were not available gems would not be available for most of the people that today can enjoy them. The reason is in my opinion in the basic attributes of a gem:
What make a gemstone a gem? A gem should have beauty, durability and rarity…
If for beauty and durability the more is the best for the third attribute things are more complex: For rarity the more is absolutely not the best… If a stone is too rare, then its supply is too low for anybody to decide to promote it, then the public awareness is low, as a result the demand is very low and the stone become a collector item with a limited value as the supply and demand is a major factor in the valuation of gems.
I want here to compare 2 stone to illustrate this aspect: Emerald and Tsavorite. For beauty emeralds and tsavorites are in my opinion fighting in the same category. Now for the durability, tsavorite globally is superior to emerald, for rarity now there is even less problem: tsavorite is much rarer than emerald! Now what are the prices for a 3 carats emerald compared to a 3 carat tsavorite of the same beauty? The emerald will cost probably 5 times more even if it is oiled (which is a treatment…)
Why that?
Because of the lack of public awareness and as a result the fact that jewelers, which are in the customer front line, don’t want to promote tsavorite:
Jewelers want to make their business and life easy and we can all understand that:
I will take one of my French jeweler friends as an example:
He wanted to try to make one of his wealthiest customers, who wanted something special for a ring, happy. As he personally loves tsavorite, he sold her a 3 carats tsavorite and did for her a nice ring. One year after the lady came back and she was so happy about her stone and its price that she asked him a pair of matching earrings for her next birthday in 3 months… He then got hell to get these 2 stones to please his customer. He did no profit on them as he spent a lot of money to get 2 stones really matching… 2 years after she came back and asked for a necklace with if I remember well about 15 stones… My friend is still searching for them after 2 years… His customer was very disappointed not to have the necklace for her birthday and worse not even for her birthday the following year.
He told me that next time he will not loose his time selling tsavorite but just sell emeralds, as with an emerald he could have supplied his customer with the earrings and the necklace easily, then she would have been happy and finally his income would also has been better as instead to fight to sell a $2000 tsavorite he could have sold a $10000 emerald…

I have to say that I liked to use this story to illustrate this concept to my students. If rubies, sapphires and emeralds were so rare to be only available for the very few, their value would probably drop as gemstones are not really useful (I mean that well we can live without gems, but nevertheless they have their use), there are valuable because many people desire them… and create a market for them.

Now I would like to share with you some of my recent fieldtrip to Tanzania conclusions: Currently in Tanzania there are may be 100.000 to 120.000 involved in gem mining. Tanzania is a gem paradise where many gems are found: Ruby, sapphire, spinel, emeralds, chrysoberyl, tanzanite, tsavorite and other garnets… The choice is large.
The most important mining place in Tanzania is now Merelani where Tanzanite is mined with probably around 80.000 miners working there. The number of miners in Merelani has grown after this gem to have been promoted in American TV channels. Most of the Tanzanite produced is heated to get to the very beautiful color American people appreciate so much. Then in Songea around 10.000 people are mining sapphires that are send in Thailand to be treated with the beryllium technology. Before 2000 when this treatment was not available less than 200 miners were working there. After Songea I estimate than around 5.000 miners are scattered in Tunduru area were sapphires are mined to be mostly treated in Thailand or Sri Lanka. Now if we look at the number of miners that are searching for the 2 gems for which there is no treatment: spinels (Tanzanian spinels can equal in beauty most of the best Burmese) and Tsavorite, I will say that there are around 800 people involved in mining spinel in Mahenge and probably around 1200 mining tsavorite in Lemshuko and Ruangwa. So around 2% of the mining force works on unheated gems, while 98% are working on gems which will be usually treated… But then in these areas some very fine gems are found that will not need any treatment.
When we ask the miners about the reason why they mine this gem and not this other one, the answer is the same: They need to get regular income! A small scale miner if he is very lucky will get, lets say a good stone each year. But he needs to eat everyday. Treatments create a market for second quality gems, and then miners can sell their production each day… So there is mining. Tanzanite, Songea and Tunduru sapphires are easy to sell, but what to do with spinels and tsavorite which does not have the best color, a good clarity, a good shape? Fish tank stones? That’s an idea… But it will hardly help the miner to make his family live… So few people are involved in these mining because as this gemstone does not have a real large public recognition the demand is low and the prices also low. Worse there is no market for the second quality. So with the same amount of hard work than to mine tanzanite or Songea sapphire, they get less.
What I’ve seen in the 4 months I spend traveling in gem mining areas in south east Asia and Africa it is that for people to mine they need to have a market in order to get regular income. If only the top quality gems, which are very rare, got a market, most miners could not get an income and then there would be no mining. But if the second quality gems get a market, (because a treatment is available) then there are miners working and then top quality gems are produced…
So somewhere nowadays: No treatments? Well sorry in this case to my experience after traveling 3 months in Madagascar, Kenya and Tanzania: No untreated gems!
I will use another analogy I use sometimes with my students at AIGS in Bangkok, to illustrate may be better: Cars… behind the “car” word, as the “gemstone” word, there are different realities: There are some “200.000 euro Ferrari” cars , and now there are some “5.000 euros Renault” cars. For some a “5.000 euro Renault” is not a car, the “car” word should not be applied to such a low quality machine as for them a real car is a “dream machine”. A “5000 euros Renault” should be called a “transportation machine”. OK…
But if there was only “Ferrari” cars, only a few number of people could afford a “car” and most people would travel on horses, then there would not be any highways, because why to make highways when 99,99% of the people use horses… So no highways and may be no roads… Then if there are no highways and no road, there would be no “Ferrari”…
With gems I’ve the feeling it is the same: No treatments? Ok but then no mining… And finally as a result no untreated gems!
So are treatments good or bad?
Well it’s the same again as with cars:
If you buy lets say a “second hand Toyota” and pay the price for a “second hand Toyota”: No problem. Now if you pay a “Ferrari” price and get a “second hand Toyota”, then something is wrong.
I know many people who don’t want to buy a Ferrari… They want a car but they also want a house and they want to go with their wife for 2 weeks holiday every year… If they buy a Ferrari they cannot get a house and go on holiday. So they have their second hand Toyota, and they are happy…
For gems it is the same: I’m a gem lover, I’m ready to buy an unheated naturally beautiful “gem Ferrari” because I love gems too much… But I understand perfectly that my father prefer to get a nice looking lead glass filled ruby to give to my mother for her birthday because he knows that whatever she knows nothing about gems, will wear the stone twice a year, and with the price difference he will be able to take her to Venice in Italy and give her the pendant with the ruby after a wonderful diner! The fact is that for my mother the important thing is not really the gem, it is the fact that my father creates the occasion and gave her a beautiful symbolic present… My mother really don’t care about chemistry, treatment with lead or silica glass, iron, titanium and all these things that make her remember the boring time she had at school… But she cares about attention, beauty, and about the symbol. That’s it!
Now some of my friends would also hate their husband to get them a heated gem… If they knew about then I think that their husband could get a heat treated kiss!
So treatments are not bad, synthetics are not bad… They are product with a market, and there is nothing wrong with them as they can make people very happy. There are synthetic rubies for more than 100 years, there are treated rubies and sapphires for more than 20 years, and unheated rubies and sapphire are still around. Sure they are rare, but they were even more before, sure there are some controversies, but I think that globally things are getting better… Now I was able to witness Thai burners ready to speak and disclose about their treatments. Of course they don’t give their secrets (nobody asks them that…) but they have learned that they have to communicate more. The example of the lead glass treatment is very encouraging as the people involved were collaborating with laboratories in order for the ruby trade not to face a similar problem as with the beryllium treatment.

As a conclusion, thanks to synthetics and treatments, people still know about gems because they are available. Because of this interest there is a demand and finally the gemstones prices are still growing up! Most people first get a small gem, and then they get interested… Then the more they learn about gems, the more they love gems and finally one day they will put the money to get an untreated gem…

I tell you that because 10 years ago I would never have put $50 in a ruby, now I can put my salary in a beautiful gem and then “eat sticky rice for two months…”
The only thing is that proper disclosure should be the rule, so people will not feel to have been cheated. Whatever the price you pay for something, my opinion is that you should know what I buy.
Now I want to add something else that you might find interesting: I’m in favor of treatments as treatments make the stones I love available, but also somewhere they make me live…
Yes! Think about: If there was no treatment or synthetics, then why the hell people would bring their rubies or sapphire to a gemological laboratory?
To get identified correctly? Yes, sure…
To know about their origin? May be…
To get graded? Well, GIA put very well in the head of the people that a good diamond is a diamond with a grading report… but for rubies we are still not there!
So if there were no treatment, no synthetics, then I should have to think hard to save my job…
As a Gemological Laboratory director, I’ve nothing against treatment, or synthetics: I study them and spend a lot of time trying to understand them… And somewhere they make me live… So I cannot say that treatments are bad.
But if I have to buy a gem, I will sure prefer to pay $1000 to get an unheated sapphire than to get for $100 a gem with the same aspect but that was treated… This is because I love gems too much, and because I become very difficult about them… but I understand that most people are not as crazy as I am. And I thank them; because without them probably I could not find my $1000 unheated gem as there would be nowadays nobody to mine it.
And also because without then I would probably not have my job today as there would be no gemological laboratory!

All the best and thanks if you have read me up to this point… LOL

 

[glitterata]

Viincent, thank you for that fascinating post.

 

[mogok]

Thanks for the comment Glitterata, it was fun to write it...
Note: one of my former reading my previous post ask me: What about Umba: You did not speak about...
Well that''s right: On my post I''ve forgotten to add Umba... The fact is that Umba with its facinating polychrome sapphires will stay for me like a very special story: I visited there many "ghost style" mines there, and the market was so full of glass, synthetics, and imitation stones that I was amazed... It was also the place I got my 5 days long malaria... and it was the very only place I was denied to visit a mine but its miners few days after the mine owner to allow us to go.
But anyway there in Umba possible 100 to 200 miners are working in sapphire, garnet and tsavorite. It does not change a lot with the global activity in Tanzania. There most of the miners are mining where they will get the best income. It means where they will be able to mine someting they will be able to sell. In fact for 95% of the mining force it means in a place where most of the stones are then heated or treated.
So: No treatment? Less or no mining... No mining? No untreated gems...
And i can give you the same results if instead of Tanzania I was speaking about Madagascar!

All the best,

 

[MingmehDorji]

Hi,

what will happen to the same stone if it stays underground for another 1000 years and then undergone another volcanic activity with enough heat to melt the internal structure again and become more transparent and more beautiful ? Will this same stone be then termed BURNT ????? HEAT TREATED ??????????? by mother nature ????????? Will this same stone be 100% NATURAL or Heat Treated ???????

Isn''t human being, genius to bring the time forward instead of waiting for another 1000 years.

Dorji.

 

[mogok]

Dear MingmehDorji,

Well this is a very interesting point that you are bringing here. I have spend a lot of time in the last years studying and thinking about this. This is one of the reasons I had many trip to Pailin in Cambodia in order to study the gems and the deposit there.
The stones from Pailin (rubies or sapphires) have been bring to the surface by volcanoes. It is interesting to see that different volcanoes have bring to the surface different stones: As an example some volcano might have bring some blue sapphire, while an other have bring mostly rubies and a thrid one only a kilometer away: nothing...
Now the volcanoe that had bring sapphires might have bring also sapphires only during this or that eruption but not at all diring the 5 ot 6 other eruption it had.
Now an interesting point in Pailin and you will see how it can be link to what you were speaking about is that the sapphire found there does not look to all originate from basaltic conditions. Some of these stones belongs to the metamorphic type and could have been formed under metamosphic conditions, then they were carried out to the surface as xenocryst by the volcanoe.
As this happened they might have been submitted to chemical action by the lava and also heat up to probably 1200 or 1300 degres...

This thing is that these stones then will cool at the surface of the eath in the lava and the inclusions of such stones could appear to unexperienced gemologists relatively close to the inclusions found in some stone that were heated. Many times I''ve witness difficulties for gemology students at AIGS about how to make the difference between stones that were heated by men and stones that were heated by volcanoes...
But as usually when men perform heat treatment, the temperatures involved are different and also the cooling rate of the stones in much more rapid than in nature, the inclusions aspect might so be different giving to the gemologist some interesting indications about the way the stone was heated and cooled. And there are also other ways to enquiry about heat treatment than to look at inlcusions: fluorescence, spectrocopy are one of these...
Inclusions are nevertheless one of the best keys to a gem history... This is why I love them!

Now about heat treatment it is for sure sometimes difficult to make a statement in my opinion. For the following reasons: gemology is close to criminalogy in some aspect: We are searching for evidences, but sometimes we have only indications...sometimes we have nothing.
If a stone does not have inclusions, is small and have been heated at 250 degres, then using stardart laboratory equipment it will be difficult to say anything. Now if there are inclusions and if these inclusions are as an example zircons crystals that will only change aspect if the stone was submitted to very high temperatures and if the stone was only heated at medium high temperatures the microscopic examination might not bring any diagnostic evidence about heat treatment but may be an other instrument might... If the gemological lab has only standart equipement and does not find any indication or eveidence of heat treatment he might say that in his opinion the stone was not heated... but it was.
Things like that can happen, whatever we have to remember at any time what laboratory reports are:
They are just a thrid party opinion given with the instruments and the information available at the time of the examination.

In fact I think that most gemologist give opinions after collecting information. If they collect some evidence, they will say that the stone was heated... Now in some occasions they might not have collected any evidence but may be some disturbing indications that possibly this stone was heated....
I think that regarding to this issue different laboratories has different approaches. But generally if there is an evidence, then they will conclude that the stone was heated, if there is no evidence or no indication they will possibly say that the stone was not heat treated. Now if there are no diagnostic evidence that the stone was or was not heat treated, then they will have to make a decision...

We usually say in these cases "No clear evidence was observed that the stone was or was not heated" , some other lab prefer not to issue a report.

Anyway I hope that these opinions I bring here will be useful to you,
All the best,

 

[Cave Keeper]

Date: 9/8/2005 11:51:37 PM
Author: MingmehDorji
Hi,

what will happen to the same stone if it stays underground for another 1000 years and then undergone another volcanic activity with enough heat to melt the internal structure again and become more transparent and more beautiful ? Will this same stone be then termed BURNT ????? HEAT TREATED ??????????? by mother nature ????????? Will this same stone be 100% NATURAL or Heat Treated ???????

Isn''t human being, genius to bring the time forward instead of waiting for another 1000 years.

Dorji.

What an interesting viewpoint, Dorji.

Perhaps, after the stone has been transformed by Nature, it is allowed to cool down over a millenium while simultaneously experiencing gaining 1,000 years of spiritual existence in its existing form; whereas, though Humans are ingenious enough to bring Time forward, did not allow the stone to cool down over 1,000 years. Consequently, the stone couldn''t take it; instead it died a horrible death, as evidenced through the microscope. Where is the RSPCA?

 

[rubydick]

Date: 9/8/2005 11:51:37 PM
Author: MingmehDorji
Hi,

what will happen to the same stone if it stays underground for another 1000 years and then undergone another volcanic activity with enough heat to melt the internal structure again and become more transparent and more beautiful ? Will this same stone be then termed BURNT ????? HEAT TREATED ??????????? by mother nature ????????? Will this same stone be 100% NATURAL or Heat Treated ???????

Isn''t human being, genius to bring the time forward instead of waiting for another 1000 years.

Dorji.

Even greater genius would be to take raw alumina and drop it through a flame, where it can directly become sapphire. Indeed, this genius was invented in France over a 100 years ago. It''s called a Verneuil synthetic sapphire. And nobody will begrudge you for selling it, so long as you sell it for what it is -- a man-made product.

Heat-treated stones or Be-diffused stones are no different. They are artificial products. No one has any problems with their sale, so long as they are clearly labeled. Swarovski has made millions selling glass and nobody complains. They properly represent their products.