Gems

Tucson 2023 — Part 1

Saturday morning the trip started with the flight leaving SLO (San Luis Obispo) in darkness heading east and south into the rising sun.  It was a full plane and a short flight to Phoenix for connections could be found to just about anywhere.  My seat was way in the rear, and I was impressed by my fellow passengers behaving sensibly when exiting the plane.  Instead of everyone getting up from their seats and crowding the aisle, they waited until those in front had moved!  Naturally in Phoenix, my flight to Tucson was four moving walkways distant from the terminal where I landed.  Not all that much later I was arriving on-time in Tucson.

After parking the rental car at the hotel and getting something for lunch, I headed off to survey the “freeway” shows until it was time to check in for my room.  Much was just as I remembered it, with only minor changes since 2020.  Some vendors were exactly where I recalled, and others were no longer around.  The 22nd Street show tents were fairly busy.  Their main tent seemed to have less congestion than before — I believe they eliminated a row of smaller booths and increased the size  of the booths and remaining two aisles.  A new third tent was added to the 22nd Street show.  That one was set up with the three aisles.  The JGM tent in the next  block had a lot of empty space as usual but they added many small outside tents.

Then, on the other side of the freeway, there was the Pueblo show.  While the hotel has gone through more than one identity change, the show has stayed with the original name.  It was the first place in Tucson I visited many years ago, so it has a sort feeling of “home”.   It seemed to be a slow day which was great for me to visit with vendors and friends from previous years.  On the other hand, not so great for dealers’ sales. Finally back to check-in to my hotel and then take a quick look around the show there and at the next door hotel.

Hotel

The hotel was much as I remembered.  The lobby and first floor rooms held dealers and the space for outside dealer tents seemed to have expanded.  However the amenities had gone downhill a bit.  The room was missing the expected microwave and fridge.  (Supposedly had been ordered, but yet to be delivered.)  The breakfast area was somewhat larger since it was moved from the tiny bit left in the lobby to a 2nd floor conference room.  This change also made it harder for staff to monitor and resupply the breakfast offerings.  It also seemed that the variety of items available for breakfast was fewer than in previous years with no variation from day to day.  The staff was polite and friendly, but obviously overwhelmed by the swarms attending the Tucson shows — which seemed to be the case at many other places serving the visitors.  I did find it amusing that the “C” door still did not unlock for the room keys and an appropriate size rock was still being used to allow access back into the building.

(Sign in hotel elevator.  Took until the last day to see the typo.)

Experiment with photos

Photographing faceted gems has continued to frustrate me. I find it hard to get the camera to see what I see, especially the sparkle of the stones. Perhaps the only way to do that is with video where the reflections of the light change as the stone turns.

Anyway, yesterday, I conducted an experiment with my fairly new Pixel 6 cell phone. Most of the photos were pretty poor. I didn’t have the phone set in a tripod and would need more time than allotted to figure out the best positioning of stone, phone and lighting. But a couple of shots did surprise me with nice detailing of the facets and color.

First is a 2.58 carat peridot, cut in an 8 mm. octagon shape. The characteristic black disc shaped inclusion shows clearly in the photo. When the stone is held in hand it has such great sparkle that the inclusion is hard to find.

The second photo is of a 1.89 carat orange garnet. The color is very close to that of some “Madeira” citrines I had just cut as well.

 

 

Been a while

It has been quite a while since I posted what I have been cutting. The whole pandemic thing left me unable to feel the level of creativity required to give the larger and more expensive rough the attention it needed. So I ended up cutting left overs from parcels purchased by mail order from the back of Lapidary Journal back when I was just starting to facet. Most were small and included, and my photography skills are lacking. My camera only seems to capture the interior features and not the sparkle, especially with the smaller stones.

Now I am to the point of getting back to the newer and nicer rough. There were only a few pieces left from my 2019 Tucson visit. This 3.36 carat aquamarine cut as a blunt end marquis was from some old stock that John Garsow was offering. It is 15.4 mm. long and 7.0 mm. wide.

I just love the granny apple green of the Arizona peridots. I always am on the lookout for affordable nice pieces of rough. This 2.30 carat, 8.0 mm. round was from the pieces I picked up during my 2020 Tucson adventures.

Next is a pretty pink tourmaline from a parcel found at the 2020 Tucson Faceter’s Symposium. It came in at 2.51 carats, 8.4 mm.

Finally prasiolite quartz with concave facets on the pavilion. I’ll skip the part where being out of practice with the fantasy machine, there was an unfortunate incident requiring the pavilion to be completely recut. The fantasy machine is not forgiving when one’s attention slips. Fortunately, the rough was sufficiently deep, that the only loss was my time and my pride. The stone ended up as 11.6 mm., 7.08 carats.

 

 

One of these things is not like the others…

A lone medium-sized Ametrine with concave pavilion facets is surrounded by an assortment of small garnets. It being 2020, as the pandemic news continued to get worse through the summer and into the fall months, I found myself in a faceting slump.   I just could not get feeling creative enough to do justice to the great rough I had brought home from Tucson in February. So I started cutting simple, smaller, less costly pieces of garnet.

Since I have a soft spot for garnets there were plenty in the inventory. Some of them dated back to when I was just learning to facet and buying though the mail from advertisers in the back of Lapidary Journal. Thus some of the rough has been more to the learning-to-cut material rather than gem quality. Even then, garnets can often show all sorts of interesting inclusions when examined with the 10x loupe and still sparkle when held at a normal distance.

Normally, this time of year I would be making reservations for Tucson. Because the US has not brought COVID under control, I will not be going to Tucson in 2021. (At this point, we aren’t having our usual family gathering for Thanksgiving and Christmas is looking unlikely as well.) I guess I will keep working on small garnets for the next few months. Maybe if things are looking brighter by February, I will be inspired to start working on that 2020 stash.

Meanwhile, please stay safe folks. Listen to Dr. Fauci.

A Few African Garnets

Garnets are generally one of my favorite stones to facet. Usually they cooperate and take a nice polish without fighting back.  Sometimes they end up a bit too dark — a classic red that won’t sparkle.  Sometimes there are fine needle inclusions that make for a sleepy look to the stone.  Often they can contain interesting inclusions that are easily visible while the stone is on the dop and being examined with magnification but when finished, the inclusions are not a detriment to the overall appearance of the stone.  So while I was in Tucson, I could not resist picking up a few parcels of small African garnets.  As a balance to the larger (time consuming) pieces I was cutting using the fantasy machine, I dopped up a few of these for quick positive reinforcement.

This is a 1.30 carat garnet from Malawi which is 5.5 mm. across.  There is quite a color range in the stones coming from this region.  This stone tends towards the orangish side.

Next is another Malawi garnet which is has a purple red color.  It is 7.8 mm. in diameter and is 1.64 carats.

Even more purple this garnet from Umba region of Tanzania is 1.56 carats and 6.7 mm.

Like the Malawi garnets, the Umba garnets also have a wide range of color.  This orangish red one is 1.06 carats and 6.0 mm. across.

Another parcel was labeled “Ruvu River” which is also in Tanzania.  This slightly purplish garnet is 1.02 carats, 5.8 mm.