BUYING NATURAL GEMSTONE ROUGH FOR FACETING

TIPS FOR SAVING TIME AND MONEY AND AVOIDING AGGRAVATION

- MARK OROS

Being a well-informed customer when buying natural gemstone rough for faceting will save you time, money, and aggravation. Before I started faceting gemstones, I worked primarily with opaque gemstone material, creating cabochons and carvings. I had very little understanding of the criteria for purchasing good faceting rough and found limited educational resources.

It did not help that my initial sources and experiences for facet-grade rough were less than stellar. It was very frustrating to get an order for a faceted gemstone from a client, place an order for a facet-grade rough gemstone with a broker, and then receive a very included gemstone unsuitable for faceting. This situation put me in a difficult position between the client wanting their faceted gemstone promptly and arguing with the rough gemstone dealer that their piece of rough was unsuitable for faceting. It was then that I decided to educate myself on the aspects and terminology of quality facet-grade rough gemstones.

Like every industry, the gemstone industry had a lexicon all its own and levels of expertise, which meant I had to start at the novice level and teach myself. I began by reading several gemstone books and earlier published faceting books, and I also took several gemstone classes, which were offered online by the Gemological Institute of America. What I learned could be distilled down to the four main categories that have the most significant bearing on the quality of gemstones, both rough and finished. These are the four C classifications:

Clarity - the level of transparency for a gemstone

Carat - the weight/size of the rough and finished gemstone

Color - the available and desirable color of gemstone types

Cut - the design in which the gemstone is faceted