Unpolished looking facets on tsavorite?

[sugarplum]

hi all-

need your expertise and knowledge on colored stones, specifically tsavorites. do they usually have unpolished looking facets and little knicks/pits? took a look at one last week and with a loupe, saw what looked like unpolished/rough facets. some of the facets looked scuffed up and didn''t have the smooth/shiny look. is that normal? we were told that gemstones are usually like that because to maintain carat weight, jewelers will most often leave it that way (and not polish)? we were also told that tsavorites/colored stones will often have inclusions and pits and will scratch easily. any truth to this? or was that just a bad tsavorite and we should keep looking for another that''s smooth and shiny all over?

 

[PrecisionGem]

If you are buying a new stone, you should expect it to not have any scratches, and that all the facets are polished including the girdle. Now that''s what you should expect. What you will get will vary on where you buy the stone.

Often expensive stones such as sapphire, ruby and tsavorite are poorly cut. They are cut for the maximum weight retention, but this is no excuse for facets that are not polished. Usually the polishing is done with a rough polish, that most American cutters would consider a pre-polish. At times when cutting a stone, there may be a spot that doesn''t quit finish up, and this is called a "natural". If it''s left in a place that it just can not bee seen, then it''s not the end of the world and could be a good decision on the cutter part rather than making the stone smaller.

Colored stones for the most part are pretty hard, and will wear well if you look for stone with a hardness of 7 or greater. This would include: Garnets, tourmaline, spinel, sapphire, emerald, quartz, zircon, Aquamarine and many more. It would take a stone that is harder than one of these to scratch them. So gold, glass, your kitchen fork etc will not scratch these stones. Other harder stones will, like a diamond, or a sapphire could scratch a garnet, but a garnet could not scratch a sapphire.

That being said, you certainly should be able to find a well cut tsavorite, with a fine polish on every facet.

 

[Pandora II]

My e-ring tsavorite has no pits, scratches or nicks - and every surface is polished. Even with a loupe I can''t fault it.

I have another 10 (2 matched ovals and 8 matched pears each around 0.80ct), none of which have pits etc, and all their surfaces are polished too - they''re not in the same league as my e-ring stone, so I would say that even with pieces that are not finest quality you should still be seeing good craftsmanship.

Out of all my garnets I only have one that could be polished a bit better and that has a fracture that hits the surface on the pavillion - I bought it because it was an extremely good colour change and a collection piece so the other aspects weren''t important.

 

[sugarplum]

Date: 2/22/2009 8:00:52 PM
Author: Pandora II
My e-ring tsavorite has no pits, scratches or nicks - and every surface is polished. Even with a loupe I can''t fault it.

I have another 10 (2 matched ovals and 8 matched pears each around 0.80ct), none of which have pits etc, and all their surfaces are polished too - they''re not in the same league as my e-ring stone, so I would say that even with pieces that are not finest quality you should still be seeing good craftsmanship.

Out of all my garnets I only have one that could be polished a bit better and that has a fracture that hits the surface on the pavillion - I bought it because it was an extremely good colour change and a collection piece so the other aspects weren''t important.

i think that''s what i saw with this one. an inclusion that hits the surface so there''s a nick. will keep looking...