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I am often asked by clients, friends and family about how gemstones are faceted. I designed this photo pictorial to illustrate to the steps of the gemstone cutting process. The gemstone I selected for this first pictorial was a 13.3ct piece of rhodolite garnet from Africa. Due to the shape of the rough, I chose an oval design for the finished gemstone. The pictures below show the gem progress from a piece of rough to a finished gemstone. Each photograph is described in depth to highlight what is occurring during the gemstone cutting process.

Mainland China’s incredible growth and potential is a melodious counterpoint to the songs of worldwide woe in our industry, as John Pollard discusses in the first of a two-part report.

Any statement of value must contain the elements of what something is worth, to whom, when and under what circumstances. An unexplained number is at best useless, and quite possibly misleading. That’s just fundamental to the concept of value and nearly every discussion of value ends up with someone talking about ‘fair market value’ as some well understood benchmark that you can work from. Rarely is it defined but since fairness is the objective it sounds reasonable. Don’t bet on it.