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Chrysoberyl, a true museum piece. This Brazilian gem is flawless and weighs 52.10 carats. It was produced in the late 1970s, a time when the true rarity and potential value of gems like this were not well appreciated, especially compared to the other
Good things in small packages. A Brazilian quartz crystal only an inch high displays an amazing collection of growth zones, which are commonly called phantoms. Much like tree rings, these layers are created by preferential deposition of impurities a
A slice of a large amethyst crystal, measuring 9 x 6 cm, showing the intense zoning that occurs during crystal growth. Quartz is one of many minerals that exhibit this phenomenon, but “phantoms“ in quartz are ubiquitous. They are the resu
Sapphire, from the Rock Creek district of Montana, a faceted 8mm round brilliant weighing 2.40 carats. Color zoning in Montana sapphires is ubiquitous. The zoning makes it almost impossible to predict the color of a finished gemstone. This amazing st
Synthetic flux-grown spinel, magnesium aluminum oxide + chromium, 25 mm tall, grown for research purposes in the early 1970s. Many of the gemstones in use today have synthetic counterparts. Some of them (such as ruby) were first produced more than a
Bismuth crystals, grown from a melt more than a decade ago. This photo shows a small portion of what may be one of the largest examples of crystallized bismuth in existence, measuring 22x15 cm and weighing about 1.7 kilograms. Bismuth, element #83 in
Yellow Sapphire from Sri Lanka, untreated, re-cut from 20.45 to 14.29 carats. This amazingly brilliant and eye-clean gem represents about as high a level of saturation in a pure yellow color as you will find - the photo is actually even a bit less sa