Three Precious Gems: Rubies, Emeralds, Sapphires

rubies sapphires and emeralds they are the Holy Trinity of the most precious colored gemstones on earth the radiant hues of red green and blue are the finest Mother Nature has to offer for thousands of years pharaohs and Emperor's kings and queens have all coveted these beautiful lustrous gems the royalty the Maharajah's in India the royal families in England these people have always collected the gemstones because it was not just a sign of wealth they considered it a sign of power these three gemstones are true miracles of nature and are rarer even than diamonds they're timeless beauty inspires love passion and loyalty and with proper care their durability ensures that they can be handed down from generation to generation join us as we travel to remote mining towns visit the world's finest gem cutters and discover the secret world of these three precious gems [Music] throughout the ages rubies sapphires and emeralds have been coveted by mankind along with diamonds they are the ultimate symbols of wealth power and prestige during the Middle Ages they were known as the cardinal gems for their extensive use in the clergies most precious ceremonial objects crucifixes rings and amulets all bore these gems as symbols of virtue and piety over the centuries the big stones are probably the emerald ruby sapphire and diamond mostly its due to their the fact that they come out of the earth or a natural product and and they possess a certain amount of beauty rubies sapphires and emeralds are highly valued for three reasons one they are durable they are among the hardest substances found on earth - they are rare found in such limited amounts that throughout history only the very wealthy have been able to afford them and three they are beautiful the most notable trait of any gemstone is its color and no color is as vibrant or as vivid as the red hue that emanates from a ruby like flames from a fire rubies are considered to be by some to be the most valuable gem of all and it's probably because it is so rare and it is the such a striking color for much of recorded history rubies were valued more highly than diamonds they look to the heavens there and they saw the Sun and they attributed a ruby to the Sun and in India ruby is called Raja Raja the king of gems rubies were also thought to help with a range of physical ailments Ruby for example is has been associated with blood for thousands of years redstone's color blood were very often connected to therapeutic beliefs and and cures for various things early civilizations believe the stones would restore youth and vitality have rubbed on the skin and if worn into battle as some brave warriors did they were thought to bestow invulnerability once rubies were introduced to Europe in the early Middle Ages royal families clamor to own as many of the red gems as they could but until the 18th century all red gems were considered rubies thousands of years ago they had no way to identify gemstone otherwise by its color so if it was red it was a ruby it's green it's an emerald if it's blue it's a sapphire we didn't they didn't know about all the different minerals red spinel and red garnet were often mistaken for rubies in fact it wasn't until 1783 the chemical differences between the gems were discovered the most famous case of mistaken identity is of the black Prince's ruby in the British crown jewels and one of the Crown's has a very large egg size red stone that was called the black prince ruby wars were fought for this Ruby except it wasn't a ruby when the gem was I examined Gemological II for the first time in its history by the gem testing laboratory in London they took this Ruby they discovered it is not Ruby it is red spinel nevertheless the 170 carrot gem still proudly rests on the cross pattée of England's Imperial state crown roofies weren't the only gemstones believed to have been possessed of magical powers blue sapphires once symbolized divine favor purity and wisdom making them the favorite gemstone of religious leaders and Kings you know they always attributed power to the gemstones you know they they just felt that these had an influence over people's lives to to bring success to them and to kind of shun negativity so that's why they collected a lot of them in ancient India people believed the earth rested upon a giant sapphire whose Ray's colored the sky a brilliant blue sapphire is that blue of the ocean or of this of the heavens you know these these gemstones have these properties that are reminiscent of other aspects of nature while sapphires brought wisdom emeralds were thought to give the most desired gift of all life five thousand years ago the Egyptians discovered emeralds in the eastern mountains bordering the Red Sea they valued emeralds not only for their beauty but also as a source of eternal youth green gems were often associated with rebirth regrowth faithfulness Egyptian pharaohs were entombed with emeralds believing the gems would keep them young in the afterlife any places you can find emeralds they they they would have definitely been highly highly prized when Spanish conquistadors reached the new world in search of gold they were met by Incans heavily adorned with emeralds and other gems emeralds were sacred to the Incans the natives told the story about Indian king who was rich beyond belief and who used to make offerings into a lake his body was naked covered by turpentine and that covered by layers of gold dust and he would go to the lake and throw emeralds into the lake the story was just a legend but when the conquistadors returned to Spain they brought back so many emeralds their value plummeted the emeralds that came into to Spain in the in the 16th century they came in such great quantities that the price dropped for them the Spanish traded their newfound emeralds in India where they were in great demand by the Mughal Empire in the great period of the Maharajah's in the mogul period the finest gems found anywhere on earth found their ways to the Mogul ports mogul rulers in India and they would be bedecked with jewels they'd have you know their crowns honor their their top hats their with all kinds of rubies and sapphires and diamonds most of today's priceless rubies emeralds and sapphires are in the hands of the world's royal families and famous museums but these days it's not just royalty who own all the gems in smaller sizes almost anyone can acquire one of these coveted stones but to appreciate their beauty it takes an understanding of how they form gemstones form deep down inside the earth where magmatic and metamorphic processes take billions of years to shape them into crystals although rubies and sapphires look different they're essentially the same as magma cools within the Earth's crust aluminum and oxygen atoms crystallize to form clear corundum which is the base mineral for both gems rubies and sapphires of the same gemstone they're both corundum the only difference is the colouring agent trace amounts of iron and titanium makes sapphires blue and chromium makes rubies red but there can be several other colors as well sapphire can also be purple yellow pink can be orangey pink can be a whole variety of different mixtures rubies and sapphires are not only pretty they are also extremely durable on the Mohs scale of hardness corundum is a 9 second only to diamonds at 10 but the scale is relative diamonds are much harder than rubies and sapphires or any other natural substance known but rubies and sapphires are much harder than emeralds which have a hardness of 7 to 8 the durability of a gemstone is a direct result of how it forms the more violent the formation the more likely a gemstone will have inclusions and fractures and in some cases make the stone more brittle all colored gems fall into one of three formation categories in category 1 those gems form under the gentlest of geologic conditions then this category 2 they form under more difficult geologic conditions sapphires and rubies as products of volcanic activity are category 2 gemstones it's not uncommon to see inclusions within their crystal structures emeralds however fall under category 3 category three gemstones form under the most violent geologic conditions and because of the violent conditions under which they form they are more prone to have cracks and other features that are readily visible to the naked eye in most cases and mold is a classic example of this Emeralds are formed during intense tectonic activity for example when the Earth's crust folds and buckles to form a mountain range when this happens trace amounts of chromium or vanadium bond with the clear barrel silicate creating beautiful green crystals but when a mountain range is created a multitude of minerals are forced to mix together some of these minerals get inside the Emerald as it forms creating tiny but numerous inclusions emeralds have so many inclusions normally that a poetic way to define the inclusions is by calling them an emerald garden and an emerald garden may be formed by included crystals blast fractures which are also common within emeralds and in the gem trade are called feathers inclusions visible to the naked eye are accepted in emeralds which have the most inclusions of all gemstones those inclusions can also be considered the emeralds birthmarks identifying where it was formed it is possible to tell the origin of the emerald by looking at the inclusions the emeralds from Africa have tremolite needles which are an unfilled crystal the emeralds from Brazil may have biotite so all those are identifiers of origin and identifiers that the MLS actually a natural one it's virtually impossible to find an emerald without some internal defect but with all gemstones the higher the clarity the higher the value if you find an emerald for example that's typically included that is fairly free of inclusions well that's a very rare thing and the stunt would be quite valuable in rare cases specific inclusions inside an emerald will create desirable patterns raising the value exponentially these are called Trump Ichi emeralds and are only found in one small mountainous region of Colombia at repeat emerald is an emerald that has inside some pattern that resembles the spokes of a wheel and the card will pattern is formed by inclusions of graphite that follow planes within the emeralds the best for pg emeralds are deep green and have well-defined rays that meet perfectly in the center most people heard of it most Jim collectors or gemologist have never really seen it something that you open up your book on geology and there's the only true peach you've ever seen so to actually experience holding one and seeing one is amazing rubies and sapphires can also contain inclusions that result in rare desirable patterns those needles will produce shining lines of light that have a star pattern and you will obtain star rubies and a star sapphire the finest colors and most expensive star gems tend to come from India Sri Lanka and Burma color differences will affect the star will be your sapphire the same way they will affect the faceted ruby or sapphire or a regular cabochon but the intensity of the star on top of that has to be added to the mix and very few people I know can afford a star ruby or a star sapphire that is truly transparent with an incredible color with an incredible star because they are so incredibly rare if you can have a stone that has a perfect star in the center it's priceless literally priceless the largest blue sapphire ever found is the star of india unearthed in sri lanka more than 300 years ago it weighs a massive 563 carats six milky Ray's point outwards from the center inside a deep blue dome today it's in the collection of the Museum of Natural History in New York City gemstones of such elegance are extremely rare but one thing is for sure wherever gems are found there are people who will spend their lives digging them out so the rest of us can enjoy them gemstones are found in geological pockets all over the world usually in very remote and rugged locations sapphires come from Sri Lanka India and Burma to name a few places but the largest sapphire field in the world is in central Queensland Australia the Aniki field covers an area of almost 350 square miles since the 1870s dark blue sapphires have been found here but green yellow and even pink varieties are also common 50 million years ago massive volcanic activity rained down corundum crystals and other gem bearing rock across the area on the line just on the Tropic of Capricorn here it seems that the conditions away down the Earth's mantle when these when these volcanoes were exploding had the exactly the right ingredients for conditions in the rock to form the support over time more layers of volcanic Durden covered the wash the layer of ancient gravel where the sapphires are found Peter Brown lives in the township of ruby vale where he's been mining Aniki sapphires for over 30 years iseman the decomposed granite we've got a layer of gravel and rocks and then we go up to sandy layers and that here this riverbed where ancient River be able to lay down something like 15 million years ago you can imagine the sapphires or blasted air the volcanoes dumped on the surrounding landscape with a few kilometres around here and then with these massive rains washed into these valleys and then charged down these valleys are some more like big big mud flows with rocks and gravel sort of like you see coming out of a concrete mixer like more gravelly sort of wash and the heavy sapphires and iron stone get caught up and we're looking for those rich little areas the mining process is hard work but fortunes have been made out here I mean they have to clean over after a big dam for one day just to go spec in what we call walk around looking on the ground and just picked up a 40 carat rough on you go out there and just wander around the bush and you can have a chance of picking up a stone or they say you know or come to the Sapphire future could stub your toe on a fortune in another part of the Aniki field Ray Richardson runs one of the few commercial mining operations we've been mining this area for about three years we done extensive drilling through this new area and found this new deposit of sapphires here sapphires are not typically found in a host rock like diamonds they are loose and occur randomly once found they need to be separated from other minerals in mining operations like Richardson's excavators dig down to the wash and remove the gem bearing dirt then it's transported to the wash plant for closer inspection goes through the procedure of washing it and goes through a trauma which sizes the material we only wash up to 15 millimeters over that because in this area there's not a lot of big sapphire so the rest of its discharged absolutely trommel and then inside the trommel it's all scrubbed and Holly water pressure hits it him there and cleans it all up and from there goes through the pulse eiders and that's what catches the sapphires the sapphires are collected in buckets which Ray takes home for sorting with a magnetic separator and as the material travels at along the shuttle conveyor belt the join Stein sticks to it and gets dragged back underneath and the sapphires and any other material ports and stuff like that goes forwards course fault into the front bucket the rough sapphires are separated by hand from any other materials and then further sorted for size and color then it's off to Bangkok for cutting we cut them into eight or ten different shapes and sizes emerald cut I get lucky oval round princess square trilliant first any shape and in all the sizes from ten millimeters up to six or eight millimeters so all shapes all sizes once the stones are cut they're calibrated for size and sent to jewelers around the world Aniki may be the largest sapphire field in the world but it's no longer the most prolific the majority of high-quality blue and fancy colored sapphires are now being discovered in even more exotic locations the main supplier sapphires in the world at the moment are coming from places like Madagascar are very bright bright blue and very well sought after on the market in 1998 significant deposits of high-quality corundum were found in the town of Allah cacao the discovery sparked a mining frenzy swelling the population from 40 people to thousands of hopeful prospectors the African island is only 225,000 square miles but it's a gemologist dream come true Madagascar is like one of these great treasure troves that has really hit the scene in the last decade producing new gemstone after new gemstone located on the gem saturated mozambique orogenic belt emeralds garnets tourmaline x' crystal barrels alexandrite x' aquamarines and sapphires are all found here but the most recent discovery was in 2001 when rubies were found in the sprawling shanty town of more manga so you tend to have rubies found in in places that are associated with mountain chains so the kinds of places that rubies are mined are often for quite inhospitable that the environment is difficult here mining methods are rudimentary at best hand digging shafts and panning in the streams is as technical as it gets but it means everyone rich or poor can join in you see these people worked so hard digging in there with primitive tools and this is the way it is it's the same process now as it was thousands of years ago everywhere in between the same process of these groups of people in there digging in these little pits in these mining areas and hopefully finding something not so easy it's not mechanized in the same way as diamond mining or summer gold mining it's still a hit and miss you could be 10 feet off you could be 6 feet off and not even find the vein and it's very risky and so it takes a lot of work on the muddy banks of streams locals work in small teams to collect and pan through buckets of Ruby rich dirt nearby men are digging holes 8 feet down and 2 feet wide when they reach the wash level they dig the dirt out laterally with picks and shovels it's tough work for hopes of a big payoff rough stones are cleaned and brought into the town where the town's folk lend a hand sorting them into piles of color and size Malagasy rubies tend to be purplish red to very dark red and are generally quite small however some areas have produced rough transparent crystals yielding faceted pieces as large as 12 carats these specimens usually contain inclusions of zircon or root till find quality Ruby in large sizes is very hard to come by in such a gem rich area it's a wonder there are no large commercial operations but the terrain discourages any large machinery from being brought in Madagascar is really rough it's really rough and when people think rough this is like really rugged to go there to get to more manga from the capital of a ton on areevo it's a day of driving followed by a full day of bushwhacking through the dense jungle these stones by and large come from very remote and exotic areas places like the Andes Mountains in South America and Colombia Madagascar Mozambique Burma Sri Lanka they're very remote a lot of times in a jungle region foreign gem dealers who come to Madagascar do not venture into the remote mining towns instead they work from trading Hut's that are established in major townships like on De La Mina miners from more manga and other boom towns trek in and out daily trading gems for cash but Madagascar isn't the only country blessed with such a dizzying array of treasures tucked away in the hills of eastern Brazil lies the bustling town of Nova era mining for emeralds began here in the 1960s with no signs of slowing down I've been in the mines in Brazil that emerald mines in Brazil we're seeing the schist come out of the ground the dirt coming out of the ground and you see emerald crystals this is just like fresh out of the ground like that it's pretty amazing Antonio Raimundo dos Santos works a mine outside Nova era it's a typical setup workers are lowered down a narrow shaft on a makeshift wooden seat 300 feet below a low ceiling tunnel fitted with cart tracks awaits light bulbs are strung along one side to provide light for the worker whoo tamp sticks of dynamite into the walls it's muddy dark and dangerous we find the veins then we detonate them and after you finish detonating them you check to see if there is anything and if there is the guys gather them and bring them up here up on the surface other workers winch cauldrons of dirt up from below and empty them onto the ground rocks are divided up by size for sorting it's extremely physical work but when a 330 carat rough emerald like this one is unearthed fatigue gives way to jubilation all the guys get really excited holy Mary it is such a joy to everybody all the workers mainly the owner he gets really excited when he can get it it is such a joy to use it is victory along the outskirts of Nova era the mine also employs people to pan for emeralds I find a lot today it is hard work to keep bending down and straightening up at night it is not fun the rough crystals are collected and transported to towns such as Nova era for inspection grading and cutting like diamonds rubies sapphires and emeralds are graded on the four C's color clarity cut and carat weight but unlike diamonds there's only one C that really counts color in the world of colored stones color is the most important thing so if you have a ruby or an emerald whatever that is exceptional color that's the most important thing and other factors become less important gemstones come in every color of the spectrum but rubies sapphires and emeralds have set the standard for the very best hues of red blue and green being able to see a slight difference in shade it for instance in a in a Burma Ruby can make the difference between a ruby that's $500 a carat or $5,000 a carat everything else is equal and subtle shades are worth a great deal of money because Mother Earth doesn't make that shade of color combined with that clarity combined with that size very often so it's a it's a it's an indicator of rarity and it really indicates the value of the gemstone colors everything in colored stones when devaluating color there are three things to consider hue tone and saturation with gems or with anything that we judge color with we're judging hue which is red and we're judging tone which is in the gem world is created from 1 to 10 so going from basically a light light almost colorless to a dark almost black and Gray's in between and then we have saturation and the saturation would be the amount of of actual color that exists to the average person one emerald might look the same as the next but in the eyes of a gem connoisseur the slightest degree of contrast in tone or saturation can alter the gems value dramatically it really is one of the one of the areas where technology has not replaced expertise personal expertise I think it would be akin to someone that's an art connoisseur someone that's at the top of their game in the art world you can't expect a machine to look at a painting and know what that person knows from their experience it's very similar with gemstones find Colombian emeralds for example are bright green with a very faint hint of blue earning top dollar per carat on the market while Zambian emeralds are deep bluish green with exceptionally high clarity and some Brazilian specimens are green that's slightly tinted with yellow Burmese rubies are so superior in color they're known as Burma red and are likened to the color of pigeons blood at market they can fetch twice as much as any other color of Ruby's just term pigeon blood red which is not really a technical term more of a more of a marketing term it just it's it's come to mean the best color of red that can be found in rubies some gems have more than one color which also affects grading anisotropic gemstones when the light splits in two rays and follows different directions the absorption and therefore the color of CERN in each one of those directions may be different and there are gemstones that may show two colors in a sapphire one angle might show a vivid blue but turn it over and it might have a purple or green in it some rubies show different Reds at different angles it is in the skill of the cutter again two before deciding how he or she is going to cut the stone to orient it so that it will show the best color face up light source can also affect the color you see in a stone color trueness and different types of light affects the desirability of a stone and therefore its value a beautiful blue in all lighting environments can cause a stone to sell for much more than one that looks fabulous in this light but then you go inside and it's it's more purpley blue trace elements inside gems create dazzling colors but too much of an element can cause a myriad of other problems unfortunately with emeralds and rubies very often the element or the trace impurity that gives it the color the fine color which is usually chromium is the same element that stresses the stone during formation atoms of chromium replace atoms of aluminum of the host crystal for both rubies and emeralds once the gem is unearthed the chromium absorbs all the wavelengths of light except those we perceive as either red or green but too much chromium will make the Ruby or emerald brittle and it can break it's a double-edged sword when you're dealing particularly it seems with chromium chromium again can also be a growth inhibitor for Ruby that's why it's very rare to see two three four karat Jimmy transparent vivid red rubies they're yielding prices now hundreds of thousands of dollars per carat right now because of that factor Ruby's very unique when you compare it to a lot of other gemstones the carat weight of colored gemstones is also important but often misunderstood the the actual weight of diamond for example is lighter than Ruby and Sapphire and heavier than an emerald so if you had three stones that all weighed one carat a one carat Ruby a one carat emerald and one carat diamond and they were all cut in the exact same shape and the same proportions the ruby or sapphire would look almost 25% smaller than the diamond and the emerald will look larger than the diamond no matter what the carat weight an expert cut can add tremendous value to any sized gem it's what makes the stone come to life color gems are usually mined in one country and are sent to another for cutting Thailand's tradition of cutting sapphires and rubies dates back centuries a lot of the sapphire and Ruby are cut in Thailand but there are cutting centers all over the world but the bulk of those will be cut in those areas in the case of emeralds Brazil is one country that has become known for both its rich mines and highly skilled cutters in the town of Nova era lapidary Sala Miranda cuts up to a dozen emeralds a day have a nightmare my favorite stone to work and cut is the Emerald because I was practically born in an emerald site here emerald cutting techniques are passed down from generation to generation my uncles and parents worked with the Emerald so this is a stone I've always been around since I was little and I learned how to cut emeralds are so difficult to cut Salo must consider many factors before starting work on a new piece of rough for you to start cutting a stone you will weigh it to see how you will use the stone and then you will see where you will saw if you have inclusions where you will draw the saw to see the position you will form you have to analyze the position of color the crystallization for you to give its shape of all the shapes into which an emerald is cut there is one that is by far the most popular in fact it's named after the gem the emerald cut it gets its name because the shape of the crystal the emerald crystal itself lends itself to that shape you can almost see a box inside a box inside a box and it creates can create a very lively stone the emerald is a stone that you cannot waste a good stone must be used to its maximum so that you can earn more in terms of carats in fact most of the time colored gems are cut to emphasize or highlight their natural crystal structure sapphires and rubies because of the way the rough occurs are usually cut in what we call a cushion cut which is sort of them think of a cushion as a round with squared corners or square with rounded corners after gemstones are cut they are often treated to enhance their natural character and beauty emeralds are typically treated with an oil or resin to fill fractures and hide surface imperfections emeralds are routinely oiled to enhance their beauty it's not improving their color it's improving the clarity and this is going back to the times of Cleopatra it's actually noted that emeralds were actually oiled to make them more beautiful so it is a very standard routine practice for emeralds by putting a colorless oil into those cracks it provides a medium through which the light now doesn't stop and get scattered it travels through so it eliminates that whitish so you can actually more accurately and precisely grade the most important factor affecting the value the color but oiling emeralds is just one age-old treatment sapphires and rubies benefit from heat treatment inside the earth extremely high temperatures are crucial to gemstone formation so heat treatment is like a continuation of that natural process in Queensland Australia where the majority of sapphires are dark inky blue Peter Brown uses heat to treat rough crystals in his lapidary workshop so these are sapphires that have decided need the heat treatment to lighten some of them and then to take the silk out of some of the other ones all the different colors we put them in a little sapphire crucible or corundum crucible and then they go into the oven which is a heat treating process that goes up to 1400 to 1600 degrees Celsius over an eight-hour period so they reach the maximum temperature for maybe an air and they cool down so it's an overnight process in the oven a special computer program controls internal temperatures inside the oven if the critical temperature is not maintained during the heating process the sapphires can crack the inclusions will heat up and expand at a different rate than the Ruby that holds them or the Sapphire that hold them and that may cause the inclusions to open up fractures within the Ruby although heat treatment of gemstones is common practice it can affect price and should always be disclosed at the point of sale fine quality untreated sapphires rubies and emeralds are very rare command much higher prices and should always come with a gem testing report as gemologist we have to be able to identify if a gem stone has been treated because so many gemstones are treated today these days it's exceptionally rare to find a beautiful faceted ruby sapphire or emerald that is untreated without modern-day heat treatment none of us would have a job in the jewelry industry there would not be enough rubies and sapphires to meet any of the demand that exists on earth today one reason that you can go in a jewelry store in any major city in the world and buy colored stone jewelry with rubies and sapphires is because modern-day heat-treatment rubies and unheated rubies and unheated sapphires are so rare without that only the wealthiest people on earth could afford them so if a buyer wants a stone of hide color and clarity with fewer zeros on the price tag a heat-treated ruby or sapphire is a fantastic and affordable choice the elements minerals and geological conditions required to form gemstones so rarely occur together within nature it's a miracle gemstones form at all current deposits will only get smaller as they are mined and once a deposit is completely gone new deposits may never be found my suggestion is if you see a nice don't get it because you never know where that's going to be in the future those pockets fry up emeralds especially are very rare and eventually the deposits will run out the highest quality sapphire deposit ever found has already disappeared which is greatly affected price most people have heard maybe of the name of Kashmir sapphires well they were discovered around 1900 in Kashmir India and within a very short period of time within two three years that mine was depleted but what it produced was some of the most spectacular world-famous sapphires that have never been seen again no other area in that region no other gemstone know whether sapphire deposit in the world has produced a sapphire of love that color or clarity or quality of all the colors of corundum available ruby red is by far the rarest fine quality rubies are steadily becoming scarce er although recent discoveries like the ones in Madagascar will help bolster the supply for a while the overall world supply will continue to diminish but recent scientific breakthroughs have offered an alternative in 1902 French chemist or ghost fern Oy perfected the flame fusion process a quick and easy way of creating synthetic gem balls or crystals flame fusion is a method that essentially smelting the chemical components that make corundum you have an oxygen hydrogen torch that is heating a chamber through which powder in the case of columbium aluminum oxide drops with the dopant of chromium or titanium and iron to give the color and that melt falls us droplet on a cylinder and it envelopes the cylinder and the cylinder is lowered as the bull grows within hours a synthetic Ruby or sapphire can be grown using flame fusion but there are disadvantages those are bulls are under stress because they crystallize pretty fast so typically they break in half lengthwise so the size the maximum size of the gem that you're going to get is given by half the size of the bull there are several other ways to create higher quality corundum one is flux growth which imitates metamorphic conditions inside the earth where gemstones formed naturally flux grown rubies and sapphires are very high quality and typically runs several hundred dollars per carat you can get fabulous color in a flawless gemstone and that color with that degree of flawlessness virtually never happens in mother nature if it does those are the gems that cost hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars but in a synthetic like a synthetic emerald you can have the best color imaginable in a totally flawless crystal which just doesn't happen in mother nature another method for creating almost flawless gems uses water other methods to make synthetic gems are hydrothermal methods where instead of using a melt the nutrients are dissolved in water solutions and the crystal growth from a seed so in some cases the seed can be still identified in the grown crystal and it is in the skill of the cutter not to use the portion of the crystal that has the seeds so that that is hidden both the flux and hydrothermal methods have produced beautiful gems but just like natural gems quality comes at a price the flux techniques and the hydrothermal techniques produce the more expensive type of synthetics because they more resemble the way in which nature works and take far more time whereas by flame fusions a bull can be grown in hours it may take you know months to grow hydrothermal gemstone some synthetic gems so perfectly mimic the real deal it can take a lot of effort to identify the differences I bought one of the finest 3 karat Burma rubies in the world it was superb and I had a client that wanted to buy it but it was under the condition that it had a lab certificate with it saying that it was Burmese Ruby and it was natural I sent it off to the lab and he said he needed to have it for quite a while I asked him what the problem was and he said I'm having a tough time determining whether it's genuine or not now after you spend a lot of money and you hear that you really start to worry and he said we're gonna shoot an x-ray fluorescence spectrometer on that and see if we can determine if their trace minerals there that are found in Burma and sure enough after several days and me was sleepless nights I found out that it was in fact a natural gemstone but it took several people working at all the major labs to determine whether it was man-made or natural as major gem testing labs have developed new testing methods the line between natural and synthetic is less murky the greatest challenge for the synthetic industry has not been the manufacturing process it has been in gaining acceptance by gem connoisseurs who want to know their gemstone was formed naturally over billions of years with no help from man a gemstone synthetic is a gem that's been made in a laboratory that wasn't mined it wasn't made by Mother Nature deep within the earth 100 million years ago it was made by a laboratory perhaps in China two weeks ago that's the difference but chemically optically and physically it is a ruby it's not a fake it is a ruby but what's a ruby like that worth compared to that million dollar Ruby that was found the best ruby found in the last five years at a mocha Burma that's the difference rubies sapphires and emeralds are considered precious because they are beautiful durable and most of all rare as time goes on scientists will likely continue to find more inexpensive and faster ways to recreate in the lab what mother nature took eons to produce but whether the product is of science or nature like the kings and Pharaohs of ancient times mankind will always value the alluring beauty and timeless elegance of a precious gem [Music]

Channel: JTV Live Now

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Keywords: jtv, jewelry television, precious gems, ruby, emerald, sapphire, gemstones

Id: VAbxAtEJ_LI

Length: 46min 47sec (2807 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 09 2020