Featured Jewellery - Pearl Jewelry

Gemstone

Buying with a Certificate
Certificates have become the standard with diamond selling, but they can
also accompany very fine colored gemstones. If you’re considering bidding
on a piece that has a large and valuable center stone (such as a big ruby or
sapphire), e-mail the seller to ask if she will provide a lab certificate proving
the stone is natural and of good quality. It’s rarer for cultured pearls to come
with certificates, although some dealers are making pearl certification more
of a habit these days.
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Red Flags
Many of the red flags for gemstones and pearls are the same as for diamonds,
although the details differ. Here are a few to look out for:
■ Synthetic gemstones. Synthetics are more widespread with colored
gemstones than with diamonds, just because the practice has been
going on longer. As with diamonds, manufacturers simulate the formation
of colored gemstones in a lab environment. You’ll often see
synthetics for more expensive and popular gemstones such as sapphires
and rubies. Again, synthetics don’t mean fake—they’re real gemstones,
with all the same properties. But because they’re man-made instead of
mined, you can get them at a better price—often without many of the
flaws that come with natural stones. On the other hand, sellers are
legally obligated to disclose whether a gemstone is natural or synthetic
—it can affect the value of the gemstone and is important if you ever
plan to re-sell the gemstone. Plus, many buyers who are drawn to the
natural and miraculous beauty that colored gemstones offer might be
disappointed to learn their gems were produced in a laboratory. So it’s
your right to know where your gemstone originated.
Note
The term synthetic may be misleading. Industry professionals use the term to mean
lab-created, or man-made. Some sellers, however, might use it to mean artificial.
Read the product description carefully. If the seller puts quotes around any terms,
as in 2 CT. “RUBY”, beware: You could receive a pretty, red piece of glass! When in
doubt, e-mail the seller for clarification before bidding.
Note that there are no such things as synthetic pearls—that is, real
pearls cultured in a lab. If you see a description for “man-made pearls,”
they’re probably made out of glass, plastic, or shells, and are not true
cultured pearls.
■ Gemstone and cultured pearl treatments. Over the last couple
decades, treatments, or enhancements, for colored gemstones and
cultured pearls have become a major controversy. In truth, however,
most cases of treated or enhanced gemstones or cultured pearls are
not that big of a deal. Indeed, depending on the kind of gemstone
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you buy, you can assume it has been treated in some way. Because of
the great demand for gemstones from around the world, they have
been heavily mined, which means the naturally beautiful ones are
fewer and farther between. With a few technological treatments,
though, you can get a pretty emerald or ruby for less money than
a non-enhanced one would cost you. Here’s a look at some of the
treatments you’ll stumble across in the gemstone world.
■ Heat treatments. Gemstones are formed by cooling magma deep
in the earth, and the color and other traits of a gemstone are determined
by the elements that are hanging around in that magma as
it crystallizes. Traders use heat treatments to change the structure
of a gemstone so that the present elements “rearrange” themselves
to produce an attractive color. Sapphires, such as the one in Figure
4.7, plus rubies, citrine, aquamarine, and tanzanite are almost
always heat-treated to bring out their vivid colors. Some traders
also use heat in rubies to remove imperfections.
■ Clarity enhancement. Because colored gemstones are softer materials
than diamonds, they often feature inclusions and fractures that
buyers can see, thereby affecting the beauty of the stone. Gemstone
traders have found a way to cover these fractures by injecting
different kinds of materials into the stones—most commonly oils,
resins, and glass. These treatments are most often found in emeralds
and rubies; you can pretty much assume that lower-priced stones,
especially, have received some kind of clarity enhancement. Oiled
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Figure 4.7
Don’t be alarmed if you
learn your gemstone has
been heat-treated; many of the
most popular colored gems,
such as sapphires, undergo
exposure to intense heat to
bring out their brilliant colors.
and filled stones require special care, so if you purchase a gemstone
of a significant size, be sure to find a jewelry repair professional or
gemologist who can help you care for your gemstone when you
buy it.
■ Irradiation. As scary as it sounds, radiation is sometimes used to
change the color of gemstones and cultured pearls; often, the treatment
gives a gemstone an amazing makeover, changing it from
one color to another completely. Radioactivity is dealt in relatively
small doses, and traders who do use this method are legally required
to hold on to the stones for an accepted period of time before
releasing them to the public so the stones aren’t dangerous. Unless
the stone is exposed to extreme heat or light, the treatment is
permanent. Stones that are commonly irradiated include blue
topaz, smoky quartz, red tourmaline, and, occasionally, diamonds
and pearls.
■ Dyes. You often see dyes used with cultured pearls. Dying is hard
to spot, especially if it’s used to pass off ugly pearls as pearls with
pure white surfaces. More often, however, traders of inexpensive
freshwater cultured pearls will dye their strands to sell them as
colorful fashion accessories (see Figure 4.8 as an example). The
problem is that dyes can fade or peel over time. Cultured pearls
naturally come in subtle colors (and often have a sheen to them
that suggests a rainbow of colors). If you see a photo in which the
pearls appear to have an unnatural color (such as bright yellow,
blue, or dark black), e-mail the seller and ask him whether the
pearls have been dyed before bidding. Occasionally, you’ll also find
dyed gemstone beads—gemstones that have been rounded off as
beads and strung rather than faceted and set in finished jewelry.
■ Rough or uncut gemstones. Just as the tabloids at the grocery
checkout remind you constantly that movie stars look terrible without
makeup, so now do you understand that all gemstones don’t come
out of the ground looking beautiful. And even if miners do uncover
a perfect specimen, the stone might require hours or even days of
careful cutting and polishing by professional gemstone cutters to
make it desirable. A piece of rough, as an uncut gemstone is called, is
typically no more attractive than a rock—or a pretty piece of quartz
if you’re lucky.
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Figure 4.8
Metallic or bright, unnatural
colors in cultured pearls often
indicate they’ve been dyed
or irradiated. E-mail the
seller to ask. If the seller is
obeying the rules, he will be
straightforward with you about
the processing to which the
pearls have been exposed.
You’ll see many listings on eBay, like the one in Figure 4.9, for lots of
rough and uncut gemstones, which can be yours for very little money.
Don’t fall for it! It’s somewhat difficult (thought not completely
impossible) to walk into a corner jewelry store, hand over an uncut
gemstone, and expect the jeweler to be able to cut and polish it.
Only skilled cutters and faceters can do that kind of work—and the
odds of finding one such faceter in your neighborhood gem shop or
jewelry store are slim. Also, a rough gemstone for sale on eBay might
not necessarily produce the most attractive cut and polished gemstone,
even if you do find somebody to cut it for you. You might wind up
with a cool paperweight and a fun story to go along with it—but
probably little more.