Topaz

Chemical formula: Al2SiO4(F9OH)2 + Cr Hardness: 8 Cleavage: Perfect basal ( one direction). Fracture-conchoidal. Brittle. Luster: vitreous Crystal habbit: Orthorhombic. Prismatic, well formed, water worn pebbles, stimpy, very large, granular Density: 3.57-3.57 Occurs in dark yellow, light yellow, brown, pale blue, dark rose red, pink, lilac, brown, yellow brown, gray brown, green, light green, colorless Sources: Nigeria, Sri Lanka, Burma, Brazil, Russia, Pakistan, Utah, Australia, Namibia, Zimbabwe, China Most of the blue topaz seen in jewelry nowadays have been treated with cobalt 60, electrons or neutron atomic particles to create a blue color.

Sky blue being a lighter shade resembling a "sky blue" at noon on a clear day, Swiss blue is more intense almost neon like, while London blue has a bluish darker inkish cast. Prices of irradiated blue topaz has come down to a few dollar and cents per carat due to over production.

You can own a piece for a few to tens of dollars for a very nice piece. Precious topaz on the other hand still a rare item especially the pinkish, red, sherry and peach colors; these are orginally orange crystal containing Cr and after heating turns to a pink hue and show a Cr spectrum. Sources include Minais Gerais, Brazil and Mardan, Pakistan. Burma, Sri Lanka, China also produce topaz.

Treatable rough coming in large quantities by the hundred of kilos mostly from Sri Lanka, China, Nigeria and Brazil. Natural colors of red,pink and orange are exceeding rare.

Thermoluminescence may determine treated versus natural colors howver not enough gemological study has been reported on this subject.

Topaz is vey large sizes of over 20,000 carats have been cut and can be viewed in the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles and New York as well as the Smithsonian Nuseum in Washington DC. Sherry, champagne, light green and blue are desirable colors for any gem collection.

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Garnet

Garnets are found in various shades and occurs in many colors, except blue. But its dark red variety is valued as a precious stone although the mineral is quite common. Garnet crystals are 12 faced and has a vitreous luster, a white streak, and is normally transparent to translucent. Garnet has a hardness between 6.5 to 7.5 in the Mohs hardness scale.

The specific gravity varies between 3.56 and 4.32, depending upon the chemical composition. About garnet, there are many interesting mystic stories around the world and believe garnet as good stone for healing wealth and health, relieving skin conditions, protecting against poisons. Garnet may even protect one from thieves and if placed under the pillow, garnet would protect from having bad dreams. Many garnet crystals can be seen in a rock cavity. Cut brilliant garnets are used as ring stones with large ones as pendants, often with cabochon cut and carved.

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Our Top Jade Highlight Jade

Jade is no ordinary stone. Not even an ordinary "precious" stone. It has a "certain something" that made a Chinese emperor offer fifteen cities for a jade carving he could hold in one hand; that made Montezuma smile when he heard that Cortes was interested only in gold?? This is how begins one of the most beautiful books about Jade: "Jade, Stone of Heaven" by Richard Gump.

Jade name comes from the Spanish: "Piedra de Ijada", that then passed in French as ?Le jade?, but it was known for the Chinese as "Yu". For hundreds of years the word "jade" was used to describe a typically green gemstone of the alkaline pyroxene mineral group, however, in about 1863 gemologists were able to distinguish two types of the mineral, one which if often referred to as jadeite and the other as nephrite. Nephrite usually occurs as aggregates of amphibole crystals (silicate of magnesium) it is fibrous, hard to fracture and soapy in appearance. Jadeite is made up of interlocking microcrystalline pyroxene crystals (silicate of aluminium), it is more readily broken but more brilliant while polished. Even though this distinction has been made, the word "jade" is still used freely in the market to refer to both jadeite and nephrite. So Jade is not one gemstone but two!

In China and many other Asian countries, jade is believed to bring the wearer good luck and long life. It is also a symbol of high rank and authority. Jade can be found as gemstones, usually cut en cabochon, and as carvings for pendants, amulets, pipes, table utensils, and figurines. Many scenes from Chinese folklore are carved on jade discs and include symbols for fortune, fertility and longevity. More than 2000 years ago the Chinese used nephrite, due to its incredible tough structure, to carve weapons such as daggers and clubs. Jadeite is more recent, it was discovered by Chinese on the late between the XIII and the XVIII century and was fist named ?Yunnan jade? as it was coming from north Burma through Yunnan traders.

Jade is classified in the trade as Imperial Jade, Commercial Jade or Utility Jade.

The highest quality of jadeite is called ?Imperial Jade?. Seven sub categories of Imperial Jade including the ?kingfisher jade? or ?fei-ts?ui? combine high transparency with a rich saturated emerald-green color due to chromium. Imperial quality Jade is so rare and loved than top quality pieces can be more expensive than diamonds of equivalent weight?

"Commercial Jade" has the hue of green or violet, with stripes, specks or spots of other colors. It is translucent to near opaque. The violet variety owns its color to vanadium and or chromium and is famous as "Lavender jade".

For "Utility Jade" only the texture is determinant. Here no green or violet is visible. Utility Jade is usually used in carvings as statues or utensils. Fine, smooth, clear texture is the sign of top grade utility Jade. In carvings the value is placed heavily on the quality of the workmanship.

Natural color untreated Jade is known as "A-Jade" but Jade as all the highly valued gemstones have many imitations and is also sometimes treated:

Jade is commonly bleached and is then known as "B-Jade". The color of "B-Jade" does not usually last very long and "B-Jade" is more brittle as its structure is usually damaged by acids. Jade can also be impregnated with paraffin to improve its luster, or heated to

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Amethyst

Amethyst, one of the most popular gems used in jewelry, comes from Brazil, Africa, Zambia, Nigeria, Australia, Namibia, Russia, Uruguay, India, Loas, and Myanmar. Derived from the Greek word "amethystos" meaning not "drunken", people beleived that to drink from a cup made from amethyst would prevent drunkeness. The best variety is a deep instense purple with flashes of red. Russia produces some of the best quality as do Zambia and Loas.

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Spinel

The origin of the name ?spinel? is uncertain. Spinel can be found in many colors such as red, pink, blue, green, orange? fine red and blue spinels are considered among the most valuable gemstones. It is a relatively unknown stone to the general public, and this is a pity as this is one of the most beautiful gemstones available.

The point is that spinel?s rarity hasn?t motivated any major company to promote it because if the demand were to rise, the supply would not be plentiful enough to keep up with it. Therefore, spinel remains mostly a stone for the connoisseur, for those who love it for its combination of excellent durability, fine pure red color and high brilliancy.

Spinel is the near perfect wedding of ruby and diamond qualities! Spinel is so close to ruby that for years it was mistaken as ruby and its common misnomer was ?Balas Ruby?. Actually, the 2 most famous rubies:
The ?Black Prince Ruby?, the ?Timur Ruby?, both from the British Crown Jewels, are actually red spinels! The finest quality red spinel comes from Mogok in Burma (Myanmar) with a deep red color that matches the color of most rubies.

Another source of Burmese top quality spinel has been discovered in Nanyazeik (or "Namya" in the Kachin people's language). These rare but exceptional spinels can reach a hot pink color as saturated and fluorescent as candy. Spinels are also found in Vietnam, Sri Lanka or Russia but without reaching the Burmese color qualities. Spinel (MgAl2O4) belongs to the cubic system. It is found as a metamorphic mineral as marble, and also as a primary mineral in basic rocks, because in such magmas, the absence of alkalis prevents the formation of feldspars and any aluminum oxide present will form corundum or combine with magnesia to form spinel.

This explains why spinel and ruby are often found together. In terms of quality, top stones combine eye-clean clarity with an intense color, without any secondary brown tones. But such stones are damn rare. One reason is that, unlike ruby, there are no known treatments to improve spinel color or clarity, so the stones in the market are usually just polished and cut! You can just dream to get the small quantity of fine gems that the mines produce.

Regarding current prices in the market, spinel is very under valued compared to ruby, an equivalent fine quality is around 10% of the price of ruby, but top spinels may be 100 times more rare! Fine spinels are real investment stones.

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Ruby, Rubies, Red Sapphire

Burma (Myanmar) is famous for producing the greatest amount of top quality ruby with a fine, clear, deep-red color. Most of the best quality ruby comes from the Mogok Valley in Burma and others from newer sources such as Mong Shu (discovered in the Shan State in 1991), and Namya, in the Kachin State, which experienced a rush in 2000. ?Pigeon blood? was once the paramount color for ruby but this appellation is now tricky as there is no standard behind it.

Ruby can be true red or red with some purple or orange overcast or going towards pink. On the last point, the fact is that ruby and pink sapphire are basically the same stone as they are both aluminum oxide with a small amount of chromium. High levels of chromium give red, lower concentrations give pink. There is no clear and worldwide-accepted borderline between what is a ruby vs. a pink sapphire. Rubies in Mogok and Mong Shu are found either in marble primary deposits in the mountains around the valley or in alluvial placers in the valley.

In Namya they are exclusively found in alluvial deposits in this swamp area. All Burmese rubies were born from a metamorphic process (as well as Vietnamese, Nepalese and Afghan stones). They are usually poor in iron, and as a result, show a strong red fluorescence which make them different from their cousins from basaltic deposits in Thailand or Africa. Rubies usually occur in Burma as tabular crystals with hexagonal prisms. Usually the basal plane shows markings consisting of striations, often as equilateral triangles, and prisms are commonly striated horizontally. Mogok also produces some more rare ruby crystals in which rhombohedrons are so well developed that the stone looks similar to a spinel crystal. For many centuries red spinels and rubies were associated with one another and believed to be the same stone.

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Sapphire, blue sapphire, red sapphire, Sapphire in matrix, Star sapphires

Blue is the most popular color for sapphire but sapphires can be found in nearly every imaginable color:

Sapphire is the gemstone trade name for the gemstones issue from the mineral corundum species with colors different than red. Red corundum is "ruby" Sapphire used alone means in fact "blue sapphire"

Fancy sapphires is the gem trade name for corundum with other color than blue or red. They can come in shades of purple, green, yellow, black, all colors except red, as "red sapphire" again is ruby.

Padparadsha sapphires are the most valuable of all fancy sapphires is their color is close to the color of a lotus flower. In fact, it should be a delicious mix of pink, orange and yellow. Padparadsha are typically coming from Sri Lanka, but natural padparadsha from Mogok in Burma are also known.

Royal blue is the typical color of Burmese sapphire from Mogok it is slightly violetish blue to true blue.

Cornflower blue is more velvety and typically from Kashmir (India), but is also found in Mogok, especially in the Thurein Thaung mine which is famous in Burma as several of its best stones were identified by some major laboratories as being of "Kashmir Origin".

Even after agreeing that origin is not a measure for quality when dealing with gems, the fact is that top quality Burmese sapphires, along with some Kashmir stones, are considered to be the finest quality for sapphire.

In the better qualities, determination of origin for these sapphires is a difficult task. Nowadays production from Mogok is scarce and production in Kashmir is very weak. Most of the sapphires currently in the market are coming from Madagascar and Sri Lanka but Thailand (Kanchanaburi), Cambodia (Pailin), Australia and China are also important producing areas.

Like ruby, many sapphires in the market nowadays owe their beautiful color to heat treatment, and some yellow stones get their color from irradiation.

Chanthaburi in Thailand is the world center for the heat treatment of gemstones which is something of a semi-scientific alchemy. This treatment ensures a steady supply of fine stones at affordable prices for gem-lovers the world over. In fact it has become such an industry standard that "unheated" rubies and sapphires are considered collectors items. They are still the gemstones of the very wealthy as they can attain really very high prices.

Sapphire can present many interesting particularities that make it one of the crystal and mineral collector favorite: their shapes cigars like or bi-pyramid are very attractive as sapphire comes in many colors. More rare but much appreciated are the hexagonal columnar crystals.

Sapphire in matrix can make very fine stones for displays, but such stones are rare and difficult to find in the market as most of sapphires are coming from alluvial deposits. These deposits can be from former metamorphic or basaltic weathered rocks. Most sapphires in Mogok were formed in feldspar (metamorphic origin) in the west of the Mogok valley near the Kabaing granitic dome. Some sapphires are also found sometimes in the north east of Mogok in strange iron rich matrix or also even stranger completely covered by spinel. Going further north near the Momeik city igneous sapphires are also found showing the incredible geologic complexity of the Mogok area.

Star sapphires are one of the gemstone collector favorite. Star in sapphire can result of 2 kinds of inclusions:
Rutile needles reflecting light as mirrors and that cross each other with 60 degrees angles are the reason of the moving 6 ray star effect.

Hematite platelets give the 6 rays stars in black star sapphire
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HISTORY OF CHANTHABURI – PART 3

After this, Burma lent its hand to the Chanthaburi gem scene, with a new source of ruby from Mong Hsu. This new source, one of the largest deposits of ruby in recent history, produced Burmese ruby with one problem, most of the red crystals had a bluish core which would make the cut stones look purplish. Once again, the Chanthaburi burners came to the rescue. With a new technique to heat the blue core out of the stone, which would leave some silk in its place, the “new and improved” Mong Hsu rubies were a hit, quickly dominating the market.
Rubies and Sapphires from Madagascar began to appear in large quantities on the market in the 1990’s. These gemstones, combined with Thai heat treatment again proved to be a winning combination.

In 2001, Chanthaburi began producing large amounts of the lovely padparadscha sapphire. Markets such as Japan when wild for the stone, and dealers began to ask where the stones were coming from. After much discussion, the Chanthaburi dealers admitted that the stones were being beryllium treated. This caused a shockwave throughout the international gemstone trade as many said that this beryllium treatment was a type of diffusion and not simply a form of heat treatment.

Chanthaburi has over time weathered many storms, and has repeatedly come out on top, still retaining its place as a center of the international gemstone scene. Thought the weekend gemstone market is currently slower than it has been in the past, anyone can still go and sit down at a dealers table and see a wide variety of stones from around the world.

HISTORY OF CHANTHABURI – PART 2

In the 1950’s with the closure of the Mogok mines by the Burmese government, Chanthaburi’s stature grew even greater as massive supply shortages developed. The mines within Thailand and around the city of Chanthaburi quickly stepped up to meet market demand, with control over a large portion of production and increasingly developed heat treatment techniques, Chanthaburi increased its standing in the international gem industry

In the late 1960’s, Chanthaburi began to look outward for sources of gemstones. The first major source on which Chanthaburi set its sights were the Sapphire mines of Australia. Australian blue sapphires are darker in color than their Asian counterparts; however, due to new heat treatment techniques developed in the furnaces of the burners in Chanthaburi, who were able to “burn out” the rutile silk in the stones, the Thais were able to produce an attractive blue sapphire.

In the 1970’s, Chanthaburi made an even bigger name for itself with the heat treatment of the Sri Lankan geuda sapphire. Geuda sapphires, which due to their high rutile silk content are a milky, diesel color had previously had no place in the marketplace. However, once the Chanthaburi burners began to experiment, they developed a heating technique to turn these worthless stones into gem quality material. This development left the world in wonder as dealers tried to determine all this new blue sapphire material was coming from.

HISTORY OF CHANTHABURI – PART 1

The small town of Chanthaburi, nestled in southeastern Thailand on the border with Cambodia, is undisputedly the center of the world’s gemstone trade. Although the Mahesak area in Bangkok is seen by many as the center of Thailand’s gemstone district, the real footwork is done 4 hours bus ride to the southeast.

Chanthaburi, a name derived from Sanskrit and literally means city of the moon, has long been a center for the trade of gemstones. As early as the 14th century, Chinese travelers wrote of Chanthaburi as a gem market where brightly colored gems were bought and sold. In these early days, much of the gemstones which were sold in Chanthaburi were mined locally. Ruby and sapphire mines were scattered around the city, and by the 18th century were producing fine rubies and sapphires in addition to black star sapphires. These Chanthaburi gems formed the foundation of the Chanthaburi gemstone market.

The first country which began to bring its gemstones to sell in Chanthaburi on a large scale was Cambodia. The mines of Pailin, just over the border from Chanthaburi, produced large amounts of quality blue sapphire in addition to ruby, yellow sapphires, zircon, and garnet. These were then brought to what had become the largest gem market in the region.

Soon the Burmese would follow, with Shan traders from Mogok bringing their gemstones to sell in Chanthaburi. These Shan traders, in addition, brought more effective mining techniques which they had over time developed in Mogok, thus increasing the quantity of rubies and blue sapphires produced in the area and increasing an already growing gemstone market.