Amethyst

 

Amethyst is one of the most popular of the semi precious stones. Easy to cut and reasonably priced. The African Amethyst Rough we have at the moment is an attractive purple with strong Red/Pink lashes throughout. Reminiscent of the Top Uruguayan rough, but a lot more affordable. There is a fair bit of colour zoning as with most amethyst, but if you put the colour in the pavilion when cutting the finished stones are extremely attractive.Sizes are medium to large pieces. The stones I have cut are selling very well and customers who have bought rough to cut are very happy with the finished gemstone, if the sizes on our website are not to your requirements please email us.Garnets: On a recent trip to Africa we were fortunate enough to bring back some absolutely gorgeous rough garnet. This stone is a wonderful colour change gem from pink to mauve in different lights.

News and Views
Sapphires are the September Birthstone. Blue is the colour most associated with sapphires. Fancy sapphires are now becoming very popular in a great range of colours including yellow, green, pink and the fabulous parti-colour (2 or more colours together). In the central Queensland Highlands where our mine is located most of the sapphires are dug from our mine and cut on site by the owner “Lou”

Footnote!
Sometimes you can be lucky. One of the Rough Garnets we bought back from Africa looked absolutely gorgeous so I decided to cut it for myself. The stone was so different I started to do some tests and so far we have a 9 carat facetted colour change pink to purple Sapphire with an extremely high fluorescence. The chromium content is very high and pending further testing it may prove to be ruby. Either way it is one of a kind and I will let you know the results, nice stone for a Garnet!