what vendor to use for sourcing untreated side stones?

[lasposa]

Please forgive my schizophrenic posts recently! I'm resetting my e-ring and recently became enamored with colored gem e-ring designs. I orginally posted about a sapphire center stone, but now I'm thinking it makes more sense to keep my original diamond center and add colored side stones. I adore three stone rings with pear shaped side stones and so am thinking of designing a ring with either sapphire or ruby pear sides. My question is, how do I begin looking for matching untreated colored stones? I would want the equivalent size of 2 .2-.25 diamond shaped stones. What vendors could source these? Also, do you have any opinions on which would be more versitile... ruby or sapphire side stones? I love sapphires for their blue color, but also like the connection between rubies and July (my anniversary month).

Thank you!

 

[JewelFreak]

Forte Kitty is selling both the rings featured in this listing -- may give you ideas, if you don't buy the ring itself. She mentions a GIA no. -- you could ask her about treatments.

http://diamondbistro.com/category/2...9/GIA-042-Oval-Diamond-and-Sapphire-ring.html

 

[Pandora II]

I would guess that those will be heated if they came together in the ring. The GIA report is likely to be only for the diamond.

I don't recall ever seeing stones of that size advertised as unheated... for a start, the lab report would not make financial sense. I doubt any vendor would be likely to make an investment in terms of a lab report for small side-stones. A full report from AGL is $180 and that is before shipping and a gem brief is $55 plus shipping etc, so you could easily spend far more than the stone costs to get a report.

In very small stones, there are also less potential indicators - one of the things you look for are alterations to inclusions that indicate that the stone is heated, so it may not even be possible to tell. I had a 1.70ct sapphire go for testing (I was buying it as unheated) and the gemmologist told me that it was the changes to an inclusion in one tiny corner that told him that it had been heated - 9/10ths of the stone would have tested as unheated.

 

[kenny]

I would guess that those will be heated if they came together in the ring. The GIA report is likely to be only for the diamond.

I don't recall ever seeing stones of that size advertised as unheated... for a start, the lab report would not make financial sense. I doubt any vendor would be likely to make an investment in terms of a lab report for small side-stones. A full report from AGL is $180 and that is before shipping and a gem brief is $55 plus shipping etc, so you could easily spend far more than the stone costs to get a report.

In very small stones, there are also less potential indicators - one of the things you look for are alterations to inclusions that indicate that the stone is heated, so it may not even be possible to tell. I had a 1.70ct sapphire go for testing (I was buying it as unheated) and the gemmologist told me that it was the changes to an inclusion in one tiny corner that told him that it had been heated - 9/10ths of the stone would have tested as unheated.

So does that mean that some stones that are graded to be untreated may be treated but just happen to not have evidence?

 

[Edward Bristol]

Nope, an a report, it would then say something like 'no evidence either for or against heat can be found'.

That I have only seen of 'synthetic' not because of 'gem too small'.

 

[Arkteia]

I find out that this vendor's prices are decent (not the sapphires posted here, but in general) and you can get in touch with him and find out what he has.

http://www.etsy.com/shop/PristineGemstones?ref=seller_info

Also, Jason Brim often has nice inexpensive stones. I would advise contacting him directly.

http://www.selectgem.com/

 

[Pandora II]

I would guess that those will be heated if they came together in the ring. The GIA report is likely to be only for the diamond.

I don't recall ever seeing stones of that size advertised as unheated... for a start, the lab report would not make financial sense. I doubt any vendor would be likely to make an investment in terms of a lab report for small side-stones. A full report from AGL is $180 and that is before shipping and a gem brief is $55 plus shipping etc, so you could easily spend far more than the stone costs to get a report.

In very small stones, there are also less potential indicators - one of the things you look for are alterations to inclusions that indicate that the stone is heated, so it may not even be possible to tell. I had a 1.70ct sapphire go for testing (I was buying it as unheated) and the gemmologist told me that it was the changes to an inclusion in one tiny corner that told him that it had been heated - 9/10ths of the stone would have tested as unheated.

So does that mean that some stones that are graded to be untreated may be treated but just happen to not have evidence?

A report is only a gemmologist's opinion. It's perfectly possible for a stone to show no detectable evidence of treatment but to have in fact been treated. It's one of the reasons that very important stones - like the $145k/ct kashmir sapphire the other week - will have multiple lab reports so as to get as many opinions as possible.

Btw, lab reports are also not permissible as evidence in courts of law in the USA - they are regarded as 'hearsay' - they are not a certificate or a form of guarantee.

Ed, the stone I have has very nice intersecting rutile inclusions that were good enough for me to be happy to pay to document the 'unheated' status, but at one point they were modified to the extent that the lab said that they would not be happy to assign no-heat to the stone. Had that area not been there, then the stone would have been confirmed as unheated. I would think that it is relatively rare for that to happen - plus I was there in the lab while the report was being done so got to hear and see the why on it rather than just getting a report back saying heated. Quite possible that another gemmologist might have decided another way.