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Hello, everyone!
As promised, more cool photos of our gemstone travels through Brazil. And I've got some exciting information on a rare find that I will share with you next time. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy the following photos of some stunning aquamarine.
Enjoy!
- George
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Hello, everyone.
One can only buy rough here but it is all natural--the way it comes out of the ground. The sawing, preforming and heating is all done in Teofilo Otoni, an hour and a half south of here.
The statue of a miner, shovel in one hand while inspecting his aqua against the sun in the other, stands on the church lawn in the center of town and wordlessly tells the story of why this township is here.
We looked at quite a bit of rough with the natural and beautiful green and greenish blue shades that are the tell tale signs of an unheated beryl. Clean large stones were scarce but we found some nice large crystals with inclusions. Rather than cut smaller clean stones and then heat them to take out the greenish hue we thought that we would try for larger stones with some inclusions that would show off these rare natural colors. We did the same with a rather nice lot of a natural powder blue color (with good crystal) and can’t wait to show you the results.
Buying rough is far more difficult than purchasing already faceted stones and I am always grateful that I learned how to saw, preform and facet many years ago. The diverse experience of our buying team allows JTV to find unusual or rare items not available to most gemstone lovers.
I have many more photos of this part of the journey that I will post next time. Wait until you see the size of some of this stunning aquamarine material!
Ciao,
George
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