zircon rough

[strmrdr]

Val’s aqua collection and all the questions on diamond rough has got me thinking.
Yea its a pipe dream and furthermore I cant afford to fly over and buy you cigars.

I have been researching zircon both honey and blue and looked around for some locally without luck.

A lot of the pictures on the net show stones with obvious and huge windows.
This would drive me nuts.

There is also some cutting designs I have ran across that I would love to see cut into stone.

Zircon rough isn’t that expensive what do you all think of the idea of buying some rough and having it cut to the different designs.
It would mostly be stuff for me to keep and give as gifts but hey might try and sell some on the net just to see if I can but that wouldn’t be the idea behind it.
Probably 150ct max.

I have someone in mind to cut it but don’t want to bug him this time of year with a pipe dream.

So what do you think of my pipe dream?

Has anyone done something similar?

 

[valeria101]

I supose Creativegems and Multicolour does this. If you are not looking for profit, their prices should be ok and you should have a good choice of rough too. Both companies are perfectly capable of precision cutting; multicolour offers to recut their more valuable "native" stones upon purchase... Creativegems works these kind of deals routinely, and mey be capable of intricate custom cutting upon request.

A nice source of zircons (ok, the cuts are not awesome but the colors are, so maybe you can find a way to get what you want) is something called Cresla Lapidary. Despite their exotic origin, I could not find any flaw in their customer service. Their green zircons are quite a show and often seen one too!

Interesting idea! Best of luck!

 

[strmrdr]

Thanks val.

I wanted to clarify that Iv seen zircon gems in person but was mounted not loose.
The way I said it earlier makes it sound like Iv never seen it in person.
lol

 

[mhread]

There are a number of traps here that you need to keep an eye on. Firstly, if you have never bought rough, you need to keep an eye out. It is not easy, and takes experience to understand what you are looking at. It’s much more difficult than looking at a finished stone and appraising. Making money on a stone is done when you buy, not when you sell. So the price of the rough and cutting is the key. Cutting in the US will be very expensive, as you are paying US wages to someone. You will never make a profit on eBay this way. Send them to Thailand, and it will be a fraction of the cost. Cutting will be commercial grade, however most eBay buyers are not aware of the difference, and are fairly unsophisticated on the whole. Good luck finding the best and cheapest cutters. Where would you start? It’s not easy…

Also, you need to understand recovery or yield of a piece of rough, and how the rough shape dictates it. A rule of thumb is a third. So – if you buy a 9ct zircon rough, expect a 3 carat cut stone. (oh and you paid a per carat price for the 6 carats you no longer have….) And also consider its masively dense at SG 4.69, so a 3 carat stone would be approaching half the size of a equivalent weight of beryl. Odd shapes either have poor yield, or deserve a custom cut to use the shape of the stone. (but the finished product is harder to sell than the regular brilliants ovals etc)

It is possible to make money on eBay, but only if you get the volume. Buy parcels for economy, get your cutting done in (Thailand or other cheap destination), and get cuts for carat weight not optical beauty if you want to have competitive pricing. It’s not that easy, and will take years of practice to get good at this, and you will need to know a lot of people, and get to trust them, and in return get their trust. You also need buying powere to get the best. I buy an entire seasons rough from fossickers to ensure I get theier loyalty, and I get their best prices. (But this means I also get their best finds, and every season get at least 10 pink/purple/mauves over 100cts, capable of cutting 30ct eye clean stones.)

I specialise in pink, mauve and purple zircon, which is pretty dam rare. Most material comes mine direct from Kisawani, or from fossickers in the Harts Ranges. I have it locally master cut for optical beauty, and I can make large profits from it. HOWEVER – I can’t make money if I sell on eBay. I can get about 1 5th of the total manufacture costs! (As I learnt the hard way) I now have a number of collectors and high end retial jewellery manufacturers as clients. It took me 8 years to get these contacts and work out a way to make some decent money in zircon – and I still have not been able to give up my full time career.

I decided not to go ‘mass market’ on zircon, but on eBay it’s a high volume, low margin game only, as there are so many people “selling”. A tip –zircon price is colour! The darker the blue the more it will sell for. (Oh – and the more it will cost you to…)

If you are going mass, I would suggest trying a greater range of stones to make a buck on. Tourmaline has not been reaching the prices on eBay that it was a year ago, but spessartite is a good seller, and blue or red stones always sell the best. (The most commonly searched word in loose gemstones is still “blue”)

I started selling only so I could pay for my own collection – and that has worked out great for me. Hope it works out for you to.

 

[strmrdr]

Thank you mhread interesting info.
Welcome to PS!

The cutter I am thinking of cutting it is US based.
The odds are as you point out I wouldnt make money on it.

Selling it is more of an after thought to me on it.

I like the looks of zircon and my taste in color runs contrary to whats popular right now.

I prefere the brownish honeys with yellow/gold flashes.

For the blues I was thinking along the lines of light blue cut in a bethlehem star round pattern.

When/if I decide to do it I will have to look into it far more.

Do you have a website?

Thanks again for the info.

 

[elmo]

mhread, it is great when folks in the business stop by and offer their thoughts like this...it is something that the hobbyists here like me don't get to see otherwise, thanks

.