2013 was a good year!

The year 2013 was a lot better than the previous year for gem sales although the procurement of quality facet grade rough material was challenging due to problems in common  mining areas in Africa.At the same time the price of quality material more than tripled in some cases due to scarcity and Chinese buyers still buying everything in site.Fortunately availability has stabilized somewhat although prices are still rising.

We will be increasing our price per carat for cut goods in the New year in order to still be able to bring our customers the quality they have come to expect at Clear Cut Gems.
We would like to thank our customers for their  support during 2013.

I have added a few pictures of some of the more prominent  stones cut throughout the year.
We wish you all the very best for 2014.

Custom Cut Gems

Latest gems cut.

Since my webmaster cannot update the website for a while I thought I would just post some of the latest inventory cut here on the blog,I will update this page with new stock until the website is back up to date.

The latest edition is this superb light/medium sky blue Mozambique aqua set cut in a brilliant style pavilion with a checker top,very bright and would make top notch ring or earring stones.
7.5mm,3.5cts,vvs - flawless.

Custom Cut Gemstones

The year 2013 so far.

2013 started well for American gem cutters with better sales and a bit more consumer confidence than last year unfortunately the same can't be said for rough gem supply with many of the mines not putting out much if any production and prices of rough material reaching record prices due to short supply.The quality of the material which is coming from the mines has also dropped in general making it more difficult to procure top quality stones
Another reason for the shortage and high prices is that Chinese buyers are still buying everything in sight and paying more than asking price to make sure they get their supply.In spite of this we have tried to keep our prices close to where they were in 2011 and 2012 so that gem lovers and collectors in the USA feel they can still afford our product.

Here are some of the more notable stones I have cut in the past few months,some have been sold and some are still available either on Clear Cut Gems website or if recently cut then on our Facebook page.Please check in and support the art of gem cutting here in the USA instead of buying gems from overseas or poor quality commercial goods locally.

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Custom Cut Gems

New rough stones!

I just received a small parcel of new rough stones from my supplier in Africa,these gems are available to be cut at your request.From left to right is a medium blue Mozambique aquamarine 9 carats,will cut about a 8mm square shape/cushion at + - 2ct,next up is a magnificent medium/dark blue Mozambique aquamarine,very well shaped and will cut around a 9mm square cushion and finish approximately 3 ct,this material is very hard to come by and about as good as it gets.Lastly is a peachy colored spessertite almandine mix garnet,very pleasing color which will cut a nice 8mm cushion.

Custom Cut Gems

A nice canary yellow tourmaline trillion recently cut from a clients rough material.

Custom Cut Gems.

Breathing new life into a badly cut stone!

I just finished a re cut on a 15 carat stone for a client and thought it would be a good opportunity to blog on the process.

The gemstone pictured  was badly windowed and lifeless due to a belly on the underside/pavilion of the stone,the client wanted a complete re cut so the material lost in the process was somewhat determined beforehand.The next picture shows the cut and pre polished pavilion and girdle.

This shot shows the finished product which is a huge improvement on the old cut,the finished size came in at 13mm as opposed to the 15.5mm original size,the overall weight was down by around 50% which is not bad considering most of the excess weight was in the useless rounded pavilion which did nothing except save weight initially.To the uninitiated more weight = a better,more valuable  stone...uh...not really.
Good candidates for re cutting are big poorly cut stones which will still yield a good size when re cut,scratched pitted stones usually make good re cutting material because they can just be re polished without removing much material and the original design can be kept the same.
Custom Cut Gems