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 September 2009
In our newsletter this month:
• New Tools for Finding Gems
• New and Interesting Gemstones
• Rare and Unusual Gems
• Customer Questions
New Tools for Finding Gems
As we've increased our inventory of gemstones -- now over 14,000 items -- we've been working to create better tools to find gems in our very large collection.
We want it to be easy to find simple things, such as all the 6 mm round blue sapphires. But it should be just as easy to find all the spessartite garnet cabochons between 2 and 2.5 carats, or all the violet gems over 5 carats with at least VVS clarity that cost less than $100. Search has to be easy, but it should be flexible too.
This month we introduce a new navigation system that you'll find on every page where you browse our gemstones. We call it the "Shop By" menu, and it looks like this:
The nine buttons across the screen (Gemtype, Color, etc.) are categories from which you can make one or more selections. The five checkboxes above those buttons are ways to limit your selection. Let's run through an example. Let's find all the highest quality orange gemstones between 1 and 2 carats.
First we'll click on the Color button and select our colors. We'll check Orange and then click the Submit button.
This returns all the orange gemstones in our inventory. Since that's more than 1,900 items, let's apply some more filters. We'll click on Gemtypes and select Sapphire and Spessartite Garnet to restrict our search for orange stones to just those two fine gem types.
Next we apply our weight filter by clicking on the Weight button and choosing a range of 1 to 2 carats. That still returns over 400 items, so let's filter the results by removing the lots and pairs and showing just the single stones. We do that by checking the Single box to show only single stones. Let's remove the cabochons as well by clicking on the Faceted checkbox. Finally, we limit our search to pieces with VVS clarity or better by making a selection from the Clarity category. We end up with 63 items as our result, a very manageable number.
At each stage our navigation shows us exactly where we are. So after making these selections, it shows us:
You Selected: Sapphire, Spessartite Garnet » Orange » 1ct to 2cts » VVS or better » Single, Faceted » order by Weight Descending
We can easily modify this selection without starting over. We can expand our search by searching on pairs as well as single pieces, or we can view only the pear or oval-shapes.
Once you've created your selection in this way, you can bookmark the page and view it at any time. It will always find all the gems in our current inventory that match your criteria. In effect you can use this mechanism to create your own custom pages on the GemSelect website.
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| New and Interesting Gems -- updated November 9th |
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Watermelon Tourmaline from Nigeria: Watermelon tourmaline is one of the most distinctive gems in the world. We have just purchased a small number of exquisite pieces from Nigerian with outstanding color and clarity. These are the finest we've seen this year. |
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Boulder Opal from Australia: Boulder Opal is the second most prized form of opal, after black opal. The name derives from the fact that this opal is found embedded in ironstone boulders. Boulder opal is especially attractive because, like the black opal, it has a dark body tone which adds vibrancy to the play of color. We've just purchased a small lot of excellent pieces, in sizes between 4 and 15 carats. |
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Clinohumite from Tanzania: Clinohumite is a rare mineral. It is a member of the humite group of minerals, which includes humite, clinohumite, chondrodite, and norbergite. Only three sources of gem-quality clinohumite are known: the Pamir Mountains of Tajikistan, the Taymyr region of northern Siberia and the Mahenge plateau of Tanzania. Usually clinohumite is found in sizes under 1 carat but we just have acquired a small number of new pieces from Tajikistan in the 2-3 carat size. |
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Huge Topaz from Brazil: Gem-quality minerals are sometimes found in exceptionally large sizes. We've acquired some natural topaz from Brazil in sizes between 360 and 507 carats. We currently have 4 pieces in a light champagne color with outstanding clarity (all of been graded IF). Collectors take note. |
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Fluorite from Namibia: Fluorite is said to be the most colorful mineral in the world. We've just bought a new stock of some very colorful pieces, including electric greens and blues and some fascinating multicolor pieces. Most of the new pieces are in the 10 to 45 carat size, with a few larger stones, all with excellent clarity. We've recently added some very colorful cabochons as well. |
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Color-Change Diaspore from Turkey: Diaspore, sometimes marketed under the name Zultanite, is a color change gem from Turkey recently introduced to the international market. Under natural or fluorescent light, Diapsore has a kiwi green color, with flashes of yellow. Diaspore displays a champagne color under incandescent lighting, and when exposed to subdued lighting, such as candlelight, has a pinkish hue. We've recently bought a substantial number of new pieces, with a good choice of cuts and sizes. |
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Snowflake Obsidian from Mexico: Obsidian is a naturally occurring volcanic glass. It is formed when felsic lava extruded from a volcano cools without crystal growth.In some stones, the inclusion of small, white, radially clustered crystals of cristobalite in the black glass produce a blotchy or snowflake pattern, and this is known in the gem trade as snowflake obsidian. |
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Unheated Sapphire from Tanzania, Madagascar and Thailand: Our unheated sapphires have been very popular and we continue to increase our stock (now over 700 pieces). For the discriminating gem buyer who will accept nothing less than 100% natural, you'll find pink, blue, green, yellow and violet pieces, all guaranteed to be unheated. You may be surprised how affordable these are in the smaller sizes. |
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Seraphinite from Russia: Seraphinite is a trade name for a particular form of clinochlore, a member of the chlorite group. The dark green color of seraphinite is enhanced by a silvery and feathery shimmer caused by mica inclusions. Seraphinite was named for the seraphim, the highest order of angels, because of the feather-like appearance of the chatoyant fibers in the stone. This fascinating gemstone is a new addition our inventory. |
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Top Grade Amethyst from Brazil: We've just acquired some top grade natural amethyst from Brazil in very large sizes, ranging from about 20 to 75 carats. These are all VVS or IF clarity in the richest purple we've seen in amethyst in a long time. If you've been looking for a very special piece of amethyst, you'll want to check these out. |
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Demantoid Garnet from Namibia: Demantoid is the rarest and most valuable of the garnets, and is one of the most difficult to find of all colored gems. It is one of the few colored gemstones with a luster and brilliance similar to diamond. We have built up a stock of more than 100 pieces of Namibian demantoid, including some very fine matched pairs. |
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Amber from Poland: Amber is the fossilized hardened resin of the pine tree, Pinus succinifera, formed mainly in the Eocene epoch of the Tertiary period, about 50 million years ago. Amber has been used since prehistoric times for jewelry, amulets and religious objects. The most prized pieces contain inclusions of insects or plants or pyrites. Most amber is found in the Baltic region. We buy amber just a few times a year from our source in Poland and we've just added a new stock. |
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Turquoise from Afghanistan: Turquoise has been known and valued for thousands of years. We've bought some new pieces from Afghanistan, in an interesting variety of blue and blue-green hues. We've also found some of the popular apple-green turquoise that we first carried last year, and some superb matched pairs in blue. |
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Huge Star Rose Quartz from South Africa: We carry many large gemstones, but none as large as these Star Rose Quartz. We've collected 9 pieces over 100 carats, with the largest weighing in at an amazing 974 carats. The star effect in rose quartz is unusual in any size, but quite rare in these very large stones. |
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Axinite from Tanzania: Axinite is a group of brown to violet-brown or reddish brown minerals that sometimes occur in gem quality. Axinite is distinctive for its strong vitreous luster when polished, and its interesting pyro- and piezo-electric properties. Axinite is also popular with mineral collectors due to its unusual crystal structure. We have found a small stock of golden brown Axinite from Tanzania. |
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Spinel from Burma: We buy fine spinel whenever we can find it, and we've recently added some very fine pieces of Burmese spinel. You'll find red, violet, orange, blue and gray in a variety of shapes and sizes, including a good selection of pairs and lots. |
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Blue Sapphire from Madagascar, Ceylon and Tanzania: One of the most classic of all colored gemstones, the blue sapphire is always fashionable. This brilliant and hard-wearing gemstone is perfect for any kind of jewelry. We've added many new stones to our stock of more than 400 blue sapphires, including a number of excellent cornflower blue pieces. |
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Jadeite from Burma: Jade has been known and treasured for more than 7,000 years. But only in 1863 was it discovered that jade is actually not a single mineral. What was traditionally called jade is in fact two separate and distinct minerals: jadeite and nephrite. Jadeite is the rarer and more valuable jade, with the most famous deposits coming from Burma. We have verified samples of our Jadeite at the AIGS gemological lab in Bangkok. You'll find a good range of colors in these, including white, green and lavender. |
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Spessartite Garnet from Mozambique: We have added a large number of new pieces to our extensive inventory of this very popular gem. We now have over 500 pieces in stock, in mandarin and red-orange, in both cabochon and faceted. The range of sizes and quality grades is extensive. Our most recent additions are in the best mandarin orange color, mainly in smaller sizes. |
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Color-Change Garnet from Tanzania and Madagascar: We've recently found some rare Color-Change Garnet from Tanzania with a dramatic color change from greenish-brown to red pink. We have a small number of pieces, mostly eye-clean, in the 1 to 2 carat size. We've added these to our substantial stock of Color-Change Garnet from Madagascar. |
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Sphene from Sri Lanka: We have added some excellent new pieces to our stock of this rare gemstone famous for its remarkable dispersion or fire. These are bright golden and green pieces in interesting shapes and cuts, including a number of rounds in smaller sizes. Sphene tends to have inclusions, but we've found a number of eye-clean pieces. |
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Emerald from Colombia: We have just received a new stock of Colombian emeralds with rich color and good transparency. These are mainly ovals and pears in smaller sizes, ideal for earrings and ring settings. |
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Rare and Unusual Gems
Each month we feature a rare and unusual gem from our inventory. This month we feature a rare Color-Change Garnet from Tanzania.
Gemstones that display some color change in different types of light are rare. But those gems that exhbit a dramatic color change are very rare indeed. Alexandrite is the most famous, but it is almost always found in sizes substantially under 1 carat. Recently we found some unusual Color-Change Garnet from Tanzania that display a greenish-brown in daylight and a red pink under incandescent light. We've taken some videos where we alternate the light source so you can experience the remarkable color change of these gems. We have a small number of pieces over 1 carat, with the specimen shown above weighing in at 1.81 carats.
Customer Questions
Every month we answer questions of general interest from our customers. Please feel free to send your questions to help@gemselect.com. |
| Q: |
Do you sell lace agate? I don't see it on your website. BK, USA |
| A: |
There are dozens of trade names that you'll sometimes see applied to agate. Some of them, such as Dendritic Agate -- white or gray agate with dendrites -- have sufficient gemological basis to become widely accepted as distinct varieties. Other names, such as Lace Agate, have less of a gemological basis and refer to interesting patterns displayed in some agate specimens. We don't try to follow all the trends in marketing names for agate, but we do have specimens that exhibit the delicate lacy pattern typical of Lace Agate. Click here to see an example.
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| Q: |
What happened to the Advanced Search on your website? How can I search for gems with IF clarity? Thanks for your help. SM, Canada |
| A: |
Our new Shop By menu, described in this month's feature article, replaces our Advanced Search. We think the new search is much easier to use, and is better integrated with all our gem pages so it is always available. It is more flexible as well, since it allows us you to search for multiple gem types, colors and shapes in one search. So you can use it to find all the blue sapphires and spinel in round or oval shape. And it will let you easily find all the gems with IF clarity.
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| A final note -- If you send us email, please be assured that we answer all our email very promptly, 6 days a week. But we sometimes have problems with spam filters on the receiving end, so please adjust the settings on your mail client so you can receive mail from help@gemselect.com.
Happy gem hunting,
Your friends at GemSelect |
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