Recently, we had the pleasure of creating a one-of-a-kind engagement ring for a young man who is a student at our local Cal Baptist University, and is also in the Marine Corps. As you might expect, our Cal Baptist clients take marriage seriously – one of the standing jokes around campus is “It’s spring, do […]
Sometimes a gemstone can surprise us in very unexpected ways, painting a picture in the mind of the beholder. A couple of years ago, I opened a shipment of opals from Lightning Ridge, Australia and was absolutely “rocked” by this magnificent boulder opal.
While photographing gems for our website, I was working with a really beautiful Australian opal, a “picture” stone with lots of bright red rolling flash. We shoot with a 100 mm f/2.8 macro lens mated to a Canon Rebel XT in our ImageDome, and can really get great close-ups. Looking through the camera, I noticed […]
Humans have always tinkered with natural gem materials and tried to make them better, either by polishing, carving, faceting, coloring, clarifying etc. It’s our nature to try to make things better, to improve on nature, to want more. Some gem treatments are tricks meant to deceive, some are meant to delight. The actual materials that […]
I just had a very interesting conversation this morning with Paul Levin, one of my best gem dealers, just returned from a buying trip to the Orient. He’s always willing to talk freely and really knows the colored gem market. Paul was in Bangkok where he saw a vast scarcity of material, in particular fine […]
