Richard Homer and the Gemstones of the Round Table

[Fly Girl]

I was a very, very lucky lady yesterday. I spent the evening attending a gemstone round table with Richard Homer! Yes, the handsome, charming, talented, award-winning gemstone cutter Richard Homer came to my home town of Minneapolis, with cases of his exquisitely cut gemstones. The event was hosted by local designer and jeweler T. Lee. Richard passed around between 135 and 150 concave faceted gems to the handful of ladies in attendance. Richard wanted to see us get excited like little kids, which was pretty easy to do.

A year ago I knew nothing about Pricescope, Richard Homer, or concave facets. But after finding PS and seeing Richard''s gems on WinkTV, I have been wanting to see them. A few months ago, while driving home, I saw a sign advertising T. Lee''s jewelry store and recognized the distinctive concave facets on the featured gems. So, I stopped in and discovered they would be having a Richard Homer roundtable in October. I immediately signed up, and was lucky enough to snag a seat.

I arrived a bit early, and got to chatting with Richard. I explained that he was rather famous on Pricescope, and he said that he rarely came out here, but he might take a look now and see what people are saying about him. So, Richard, if you are reading this, Welcome to Pricescope!

T. Lee and Richard graciously allowed me to perform my Pricescope duties, and photograph the gems. Bear in mind that Richard''s gems are much more beautiful and awesome in person. With Richard''s stones, the cut is perfect, the color is great, and you aren''t going to find any ugly boogers. All his stones are gorgeous, so my pictures reflect the ones I found particularly interesting.

The show is about to begin. But before seeing the cut gemstones, Richard showed us a tray of gemstone rough. So beautiful, but things were about to get much, much better....

 

[Fly Girl]

Richard began with lots of amethyst. Here is a round concave geodesic Amethyst from Zambia, 18.7 mm in diameter. "Screaming, top color." You can see the red flashes coming from the within the stone.

 

[Fly Girl]

A wonderful Citrine.

 

[Fly Girl]

The Mint Prasiolite was a huge hit! One lady ended up with her tray full of the mint prasiolite. Here is a 17.80 ct Victoria Cross concave brilliant. This was the 1999 Cutting Edge Award Winng design. The material is from Brazil. Love the step cuts on the top part of the stone.

 

[Fly Girl]

Next a 19.24 ct Mint Prasiolite with a round Octafocus cut. "Great color quality" and "9 culet reflections!!!" I love, love, love the Octafocus cut.

You have the flower-like outer rim, and in the center you look deep into the stone. I think that I would never get tired of playing with one of these.

 

[Fly Girl]

Here is a 2.20 ct silver sapphire oval concave brillant. This one ended up on my tray.

A bit about how the roundtable worked. Richard would say a word about the stone and would pass it to the lucky lady on his right. She would admire it, and if she thought that she might want to see it again later, she would call out the stone number. The staff at the store would mark the stone under her name, and once everyone at the table had seen the stone, she would get it for her tray. You could put dibs on as many stones as you wanted. The idea was to be able to compare them up close and personal. Once you decided that you did not want to purchase the stone, you gave it up and it would go to the next person who asked to see it. If no one else wanted to see the stone again, it went back into Richard''s box.

 

[Fly Girl]

A 2.42 ct yellow sapphire oval concave brilliant. "Great sunny yellow color, large & clean; brilliance like a fancy yellow Diamond!! Superb!!" Like most of the ladies there, I wore my best gemstone jewelry to the event. I knew that this gorgeous stone would look great with my yellow sapphire and diamond eternity ring! This stone went onto my tray as well.

 

[Fly Girl]

There were tourmaline fans at the event as well. They were not disappointed. Here is stone #46 laying on its paper. What an awesome beauty!!! I want them all!!!

 

[Fly Girl]

I was hoping to see some aquamarine, my March birthstone! Here is an incredible stone, a 17.14 ct concave kite bar focus brilliant. Reminds me of Batman.

 

[Fly Girl]

An 18.34 ct. round concave Nautilus aquamarine. "Killer award-winning design!" This is an incredibly beautiful design! I guess I go for those big, flashy rounds. Awesome.

 

[Gemoholic]

I love Richard Homers work. But the website is never updated with new stones and has had the same stones up for at least 3 years even though they are sold. I cannot find anywhere where there are photos of current stock. Wink is suppossed to sell his work but his website just talks about stones I see none listed for sale.

How can we buy them if we cannot see them??

 

[Fly Girl]

Here is my tray at this point in the evening. From front to back, the 17.8 ct. Victoria Cross mint prasiolite, a blue sapphire trilliant, blue sapphire oval, silver sapphire oval, the amethyst round geodesic, an oval yellow sapphire, and a Windex blue oval zircon. How to pick?

I can't buy them all!

 

[Fly Girl]

Just the prettiest pink sapphire! Gorgeous color!!!

 

[Fly Girl]

I think I am becoming a lemon citrine fan. The color reminds me a lemon drop candy. Yummy stones. Good enough to eat! Here is a 24.90 ct round octafocus.

 

[Fly Girl]

This citrine spinner has a hole down the center. I put it on a needle and gave it a twirl.

 

[Fly Girl]

A 1.54 ct red sunstone. Richard says he can no longer get this quality of rough so this wonderful color is now rare. Great color. Great cut. Beautiful stone.

 

[Fly Girl]

Here is a one of a kind stone. A rutile quartz round needle spinner. Richard says that God put the needle into the stone, but he cut it perfectly to get all the reflections!

The needle...

 

[Fly Girl]

and the reflections... This is a 6.59 ct stone.

 

[Fly Girl]

Richard explained that he goes to a lot of trouble to select this top quality rose quartz. Here is a beautiful 10.18 ct concave rhombus antique cross. "Strong cut design, one of a kind...too time consuming to do again. Super select material." Richard is constantly experimenting with new cuts. He showed us several pieces that he had tried and decided he would not do again because they were too time consuming. I loved this particular cut because of the heart reflections that showed up as I moved it.

 

[Fly Girl]

We saw 3 topaz hexagonal satin snowflakes. This Swiss blue is over 34 ct.

 

[Fly Girl]

This silver topaz is 23.14 ct and is reflecting like crazy. I want a set of these topaz snowflakes to hang from my Christmas tree. Awesome!!!

 

[Fly Girl]

This 25.07 ct oval color change diaspore was not for sale. Richard has a larger color change diaspore at the Smithsonian. He says the color change of this one is better!

 

[Fly Girl]

A 113.10 ct lemon citrine with 100 concave facets! Pure eye candy!!!

 

[Fly Girl]

Richard Homer and T. Lee. Thank you for a wonderful evening!!!!

 

[Joolskie]

WOW Fly Girl... my envy-filled eyes are popping out of my head!

Thank you so much for sharing the experience (and the photos) with us. What an amazing evening you must have had. What we need is a "Richard Homer Pricescope Rountable World Tour." LOL!

 

[Skippy123]

Flygirl, you have quite the collection of R.Homer beauty''s!!!! I love the concave look; awesome. Thanks for sharing! Lucky lady

 

[Ellen]

Wow, thanks for sharing!!

I have GOT to get something from him before I die....

 

[Ellen]

BTW, what DID you buy??

 

[Fly Girl]

Date: 10/7/2007 8:16:40 PM
Author: Skippy123

Flygirl, you have quite the collection of R.Homer beauty''s!!!! I love the concave look; awesome. Thanks for sharing! Lucky lady

Just doing my PS duties, Skippy!

Glad you enjoyed the pictures. Actually, I couldn''t decide which beauty to purchase, and ended up not buying any gems yesterday evening.

Hopefully, they will invite me to next year''s roundtable! I will try to be better prepared as to what I might like to get.

 

[Fly Girl]

The lady across the table ended up with these two citrines. The one on the right was one of two briollet cuts that Richard showed us. The other was amethyst with amazing red flashes. That one sold as well.