Actually, thank you! You mentioned something that I had overlooked. I am still coming up to speed on the most recent trends in colored stones. The consumer market has been showing keen interest in parti-sapphires as the center stone in engagement rings.
Good to know.
if there’s only one or two bubble and has straight growth lines, natural corundum will certainly be a good bet… the caveat is that hydrothermally grown gems including, corundum stones, emeralds will also have straight growth lines and a few bubbles. Same goes for flux fusion. Hydrothermal gems look almost “too perfect” however, an expert, which I am not, can distinguish natural from synthetic by the inclusions. Keep us posted on what you discover about that interesting stone.
The US market is changing in favor of synthetics as a cheaper alternative to natural. Consumer tastes are favoring synthetic diamonds over real, as a generational change. Younger people with less money to spend do not seem to think that synthetics are inferior to natural as it’s not easy to tell the difference. The same goes for the colored stone market… Chatham produces great looking synthetic corundum stones… what’s interesting is that the US is the only country that has embraced synthetics over natural… The proliferation of synthetics are complicating the market in the US…
I saw too this change in the world. I live in Austria and here too they prefer lab growns over natural.
This generation is very superificial
Thnx everyone for helping. I will get an UV lamp and a see if I can build a SG device
It does seem the consumer base is starting to consider the lab-grown option more frequently. And honestly, there are good arguments for it. Climate, Political, Economy. I have several customers who have chosen lab over earth grown. Whatever makes them happy is my goal.
I am definitely one of the old school pick and shovel rock hunting aficionados. I really enjoy the inclusions and chaotic color distribution that nature creates. I passionately convey this uniqueness to my customers, but I may just one of the weird ones…
Admittedly, its hard not to appreciate the clean look of a lab-grown gem placed center stage in a piece of jewelry, either.
Cheers!
ask roy john how to build a home made device for cheap…
lab grown to the naked eye is too perfect for the price that natural would command… too perfect to me is simply too perfect… it signals lab grown… I am also old school and prefer natural… I won’t buy precious stones without paper, REAL papers…I don’t know of anyone except multimillionaires that buy 50 to 200K natural stones for investment alternatives…like purchasing artwork for millions at auction…i’ve bought high quality semi precious decades ago at cheap prices… now they are worth 2-10X as much…
I too like to find my own specimens… finding something yourself and digging it out of the ground is worth more than buying it!.. it’s an “I done it all myself” moment, which is a life time’s worth of satisfaction… I have more rocks than I need… a couple of museum quality specimens that I’ve dug up… not precious stones but collectable crystals groups within a vug and copper mineral petrified logs… yet I can’t resist picking up more… the ones I look for are more of scientific interest than gems… drab looking rocks that have a incredible geochemical and geologic history…
ask roy john how to build a home made device for cheap to measure SpG… so far as younger generations in America are concerned, there has been a value shift… younger generations value experiences over material objects… they are less interested in collectables such as antiques, antique furniture, jewerly, artwork… they prefer experiences such as large venue rock concerts that cost up to 1000USD or more, resort travel, and sporting events… tickets for american football games can cost 1-2K USD… this is a generational shift if values… when they have to buy jewerly such as engagement and wedding rings, they prefer synthetic just for the practicality… this value shift extends into politics, which I should not and can’t go into…as someone who is over 70 years old I have seen a lot in my life time…
Wir wünschen Ihnen ein frohes Weihnachtsfest und ein erfolgreiches neues Jahr!
Lol. I’m a perfectionist. When I started cutting over ten years ago I decided that I would only purchase natural rough that would cut a loupe clean stone. Not eye clean but loupe clean. Since I cut all my stones to the master competition level I figured if I was going to spend the time to cut as close to perfect as possible I didn’t want to waste my time cutting included rough that I couldn’t cut the inclusions out. It just seemed and still seems counter productive to me.
see my last reply… it was directed to my own post by mistake… Merry Christmas and a prosperous New Year!
viel Glück und Segen zu Weihnachten, möge das neue Jahr erfolgreich sein
Danke für die Erklärungen! Frohes Weihnachtsfest!
Bitte sehr! Danke!
I note the inference that natural gem stones all have straight growth lines. Such lines indicate equilibrium growth, that is, a situation where growth has occurred relatively slowly. During my personal research into particular natural zircons that crystallized under supersaturated conditions I have seen zircons with both straight and very disturbed growth lines (both termed oscillatory zoning). The latter is not due to recrystallization but clearly arose because of disequilibrium during very rapid crystallization also allied to turbulence.
I completely agree with you…oscilliatory zoning is well known in many mineral crystals, particularly those derived from crystallizing magma, where liquidus phases are continuously evolving chemical changes due to cystallization. Plagioclase and clinopyroxenes display zoning most commonly, as their crystals are often euhedral, same goes with zircons… You are absolutely correct in saying that this is a dysequilibrium condition. Straight growth lines usually indicate natural, however, zoning is also common in synthetics due to fluctuations in chromium content.
see my post… I agree totally. Synthetics however also do have oscillatory zoning.
Curious to know if supersaturated environments can result in larger crystal growths (i.e. gem-grade material) or is this more prevalent with smaller microscopic specimens?
Cheers!
Recent work on pegmatites suggests that crystallization in a concentrated residual magma occurs quite quickly whereas the large crystals found in them were formerly attributed to quite long crystallization times. However, the story is more complicated because temperature, pressure, and presence of water and gases affect crystallization, not to mention fluctuating levels of mineral concentrations. As analytical techniques improve, particularly ICPMS, formation of gem crystals will be easier to research, particularly as it relates to geochemical “fingerprinting” of natural gemstones ,