Rough Amethyst Gemstone, Yield From Rough To Cut Gems

All cut and polished gems that you see began life as rough gemstones. Natural gems when mined are not well faceted or polished, it is the skills of gem cutters that bring out the gorgeous color and glitter of these gems. Most gem and jewelry lovers are not aware of issues related to the cutting of gems from rough stones. The behind the scenes story related to rough gems is equally interesting and captivating, it involves financial risks and could define the success or failure of a gem cutting operation. In this section we talk about various issues related to cutting amethyst stones from rough amethyst. Most of the material published here will be similar for all rough gemstone cutting processes.

 

Rough Amethyst Gemstone, The Yield Story

The above image shows pieces of rough amethyst gemstones. Just to give you an idea of size proportions, each of these rough gemstone pieces is around 0.4 to 0.5 inches big. A closer look at these amethyst gems will reveal some interesting facts. You will notice that the color of the amethyst rough stone pieces is quite light, the final amethyst loose gems cut from this lot of rough gemstones would therefore be quite pale in color. So if you were looking for medium to dark amethyst stones, you would not waste your time working on this lot.

 

Now train your sight on any one of the pieces that you can see in the lot, observe the color of the rough gemstone. There is a 50% to 60% portion in each amethyst rough piece that has very little purple color or no color at all. Since amethyst is a variety of quartz, you could say that there is light purple and white quartz in each of the stones. Since colorless quartz is called white quartz and not amethyst, we would need to exclude that portion during the cutting process. This means that about half of the rough amethyst stone weight will be lost right at the beginning. As a general rule the weight loss from rough amethyst to final cut loose amethyst gemstones is around 80% to 90%. High end gem and jewelry providers like www.kaisilver.com and www.directstones.com incur even higher weight losses. This is mainly due to stringent quality control standards. A quick mathematical calculation would tell you that, if you need a 5 carat amethyst gemstone that is cut and polished, you would start off with a rough amethyst stone that is around 50-60 carats large. If you insist on gettting an eyel clean amethyst gem with no inclusions or fissures, you might need a rough gem that is at least 70-80 carats in size.  

 

There is another interesting twist to rough gemstone yield when you talk about bi-color amethyst stones. We are not referring to a stone where amethyst and citrine combine in a single piece. Such gems are rightly referred to as ametrine and not amethyst. Bi-color amethyst gemstones for our discussion would mean amethyst stones that have white and purple included in the same piece. Get another glance at the rough amethyst stones in the above image, these pieces include white and purple quartz in each of the rough stone pieces. A skilled gem cutter can orient (position) the rough stone in such a way that each cut and polished piece would include a portion of purple and a portion of white quartz. This implies that the entire portion of white quartz need not be discarded from the rough amethyst gem stone. This in turn results in a higher yield during the cutting process of rough to finished and polished amethyst gems. A higher yield can threfore be expected, something that lowers the price per carat for the final buyer.

 

Still on bi-color amethyst, what should be proportion of white and purple quartz be in the gem stone. Should the purple occupy more or less as compared to the white. This would be based on personal preference and also on the yield factor. If you fix a stringent 50-50 color split between white and purple in each piece of bi-color amethyst stone, the yield would be stressed and the price per carat would move up. In reality, such a decision would also need to consider the type of jewels and their price point. It is a business decision that needs to be taken on a case by case basis.

 

This report is filed by the support staff at www.directstones.com an online gem provider that is fully controlled and managed by www.kaisilver.com the world's leading online custom jewelry provider. The Directstones project was started to fulfill the demands of small and individual jewelers and jewelry designers. Large gem providers ignore small volume and value orders. Directstones welcomes even the smallest single piece order. More information on the amethyst rough shown above can be seen at http://www.amethyst.directstones.com/amethyst-rough-gemstone-ds-01.htm  A more comprehensive collection of articles related to gemstones can be reviewed at the online library which can be accessed at http://www.directstones.com/gemstone-library-ly-01.htm Our support team at sales@kaisilver.com will be glad to answer any doubts or queries that you might have.


Related Resources: Mens Amethyst Rings