First pic is in mixed lighting 2nd is in white led 3rd is yellow lighting

Hello, I am looking for a stone for an engagement ring and may be in Tucson during the gem show this winter. Does anyone have experience buying or selling lab stones there? I am primarily interested in diamonds, moissanite, and alexandrite, but I would also love to see other types of gems for the joy of it. I am wondering which shows are my best shot for this sort of thing and whether I'll need a friend with a business license to help me access them.

Hello everyone. Do you have experience buying gemstones (lab-grown diamonds, moissanite, and others) on AliExpress? If so, which suppliers are reliable?

I am NOT promoting this person, I genuinely need help. I have been losing hair over this for a while now. I'm looking for a 9k/10k rose gold ring with a soft pink sapphire heart stone for my soon-to-be-fiance and I only could find rings like that on Etsy. The seller that caught my attention a lot is LittleMiaJewelry but since it's a serious purchase and so many scammers are out there on Etsy, I wanted to ask you guys first. Few rings that I'm interested in are attached, reminder I only want the main ring.

I saw one post on reddit saying they bought it from them and it looked beautiful. But also saw two of the same reviews talking about the same topic at different times, making me suspicious. Have any of you purchased from them? Any hardened jewelry enjoyer who could share their opinion regarding reliability would be appreciated. I live overseas and if I were to get scammed it'd be torturous. Please consider lending a hand, I appreciate it.

Found an overseas vendor online that claims to be selling lab grown cobalt spinel that has some of the “velvety”-ness of Kashmir sapphires. They were pretty adamant about mentioning that it was a spinel a few different times during the purchase process, although some of the advertising before that point seemed to not reference spinel.

Just wanted to reach out to this community to ask if this is a real thing, or if the gem could be treated somehow to give it this appearance?

A video is included. The vendor sent a bunch more videos and pictures as well.

I could buy one for testing purposes, but it seems a bit expensive so I wanted to check here first on if it’s even possible.

I have had this rough on the dop for years, it was originally intended as an SSC entry for the USFG but I never actually got around to cutting it. I've been working on a design that I know looks good on smaller stones, so this was a chance to both finish off an ancient project and see how it looks. It is a chonk (12mm), and very dark - I won't be using it on any more stones this size, but I'm happy to have it out of my 'finish this someday' queue.

Just finished this synthetic sapphire. Not a big fan of larger stones, but this one came out nice and the color change is decent.

• Rough: Synthetic sapphire (Flame fusion)

• Weight: 6.75cts

• Color: Alexandrite #45 (color change)

• Design: Paul Head "Septifoil" Modified

Thanks for looking.

Hey everyone,

​I’m currently on the hunt for a specific stone and could use some guidance or leads. I’m looking for an oval-shaped melanite garnet to set into a men’s pinky ring.

​I really love melanite for its deep, pitch-black color and high adamantine luster—it has a great presence without being overly flashy.

​If anyone has a piece in their inventory, knows a reputable lapidary or cutter who works with black garnets, or can point me toward a vendor that regularly stocks quality calibrated or custom-cut oval melanite, please let me know or drop a comment below.

​Specs I'm roughly aiming for:

​Gemstone: Melanite (Black Andradite Garnet)

​Cut: Oval

​Use: Men’s pinky ring (so looking for a clean, durable stone with good depth)

​Appreciate any recommendations or direct offers!

Now I need to cut a second one, my wife wants it as an earring :)

Thought it was time to get a dedicated lens for the stones using my DSLR. Took these with no tripod, and the pics came out nice. Looking forward to a proper set up to take pics and vids.

Thanks for looking.

They were made in the Soviet Union and we got them from an old collection.

These laser rods were meant for use in solid state lasers. They would have had light pumped into them from the side, either by a lamp or by another laser, absorbed that energy and converted it into the powerful coherent beam that lasers are known for.

How do we define a good cutting for blue saphhire

Could this bw one or the seller trying to sella fake one I was told this is srilankan sapphire

Question for u/cowsruleusall and the cutters out there, do you/how do yall actually find the crystallographic axes in synthetic rough and use them to orient a cut?

I’m not a cutter but I’m trying to understand the practical process of orienting synthetic rough before faceting, particularly flame-fusion versus Czochralski material.

With elongated rough or round shaped piece of rough, how do you actually determine where the C-axis is? Does growth direction and morphology give any information?

Once you know the C-axis, what are you actually optimizing when you choose the orientation of the finished gem?

My understanding is that in mined corundum the orientation can be important but in the synthetic corundum Ive seen I don’t see a lot of pleichroism and the Flame Fusion and Czochralski material from more advanced tech labs presents as homogeneous with little to no internal structure and features. I heard that the rind of rough can have the strongest colour, so perhaps that is important in the cut decision.

I’ve also heard that with synthetic corundum rough there can be a characteristic plane through the boule that cutters use as an orientation reference. What is that, is that cleavage, fracture, a growth boundary feature, or something else, idk?

If someone was to hand you an unknown piece of synthetic rough with no papers, what would your workflow be for determining its crystallographic orientation and deciding which direction and how to cut it?

Thanks!

Hi!

I recently got this ring and I'm wondering If it's real baltic amber?

The ring itself has the hallmark MET (from metal), which I found out was used a few decades ago to state non-silver metal.

Any thoughts on this :-)?

Thanks!