Nightmare Event!

One of my students asked me to set a very large - 6ct - ruby for her as she was nervous about doing it. She had made the setting and it fitted very nicely, so I had no fear about doing it. Just as I was gently levelling the stone in the setting...

Polysynthetic Twinning Catastrophe Part 2

A very fine example of polysynthetic twinning and bad lapidary work: the stone was cut right across a growth plane. She was very, very upset, which is understandable. And you can imagine how I felt! We've replaced this stone with a synthetic ruby, which is brighter but less "interesting" (in so many ways).

Just back from Wales, where I was visiting the opening of the show Re:Collect at Llantarnam Grange in Cwmbran, which featured some of my work:

Llantarnam Grange is a lovely little arts-centre/gallery outside of Cardiff. Well worth a visit.

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Comment by The Justified Sinner on December 7, 2010 at 2:32pm: I would actually send it to you if it were any other stone. This is too useful and has already been added to our box of stones for teaching gemmology: such a great example of polysynthetic twinning AND of bad cutting!

Comment by Stevie B. on December 7, 2010 at 2:27pm: Some glue, a bit of spit and shine, and all is new again!

:)

If you want you can send the broken stone to me, I would definitely do something with it.

Comment by Harriete E Berman on November 27, 2010 at 11:34am: I think the broken stone is more interesting....but understand that this thought is not consistent with her expectations.

Imagine how interesting it would be to see both sides of the stone side by side with a small space in between. Strong metaphor for our relationships in life.

Comment by The Justified Sinner on November 25, 2010 at 3:09pm: I have to say that I did find it quite interesting that it was such a clearly defined example of a phenomenon of which I had previously only ever read!

2Roses, I have to say that I had never previously thought on the peril of using customer's stones.

Comment by 2Roses on November 24, 2010 at 6:24pm: We feel your pain Dauvit. This really is THE jeweler's nightmare. Our butts pucker every time someone wants us to make something with their stones.