We sell rough and cut gemstones, offering a wide range of rough gemstones for specimen-cabbing-facet and beautiful cut stones ready for your mount..Either for a new piece of jewelry or replacing a stone in an existing piece of jewelry.We offer thousands of lots, all with individual photos, what you see in the photo is what you will receive. Tommysrocks, an internet only business since 2002, giving our internet customers 100% of our attention.
CLARITY SCALE
IF VERY HIGH QUALITY & FREE FROM INCLUSIONS.
VVS HIGH QUALITY WITH VERY SLIGHT INCLUSIONS.
VVS1 HIGH QUALITY WITH SLIGHT INCLUSION.
VS FINE QUALITY WITH INCLUSION SLIGHTLY VISIBLE TO THE NAKED EYE.
VS1 FINE QUALITY WITH INCLUSION VISIBLE TO THE NAKED EYE.
SI GOOD QUALITY WITH INCLUSIONS VISIBLE TO THE NAKED EYE.
SI1 INCLUSIONS BECOMING PROMINENT TO THE EYE.
I INCLUDED.
Corundum (aluminum oxide)
Types/Color:
Padparadshah – Strong yellow, orange-pink to hot pink.
Ruby – Red to dark pink. Usually has a hint of violet.
Sapphire – Natural corundum is commonly thought of as dark blue, but it occurs in many other colors such as yellow, green, pink, colorless and purple.
Mohs hardness: 9
Refractive index: 1.766-1.774
Critical angle: 34.5°
Specific gravity: 3.99-4.0
Cleavage: None
Fracture: Uneven, conchoidal, splintery.
Dispersion: .Moderately high (018)
Heat sensitivity: None
Pleochroism: Dichroic. Darker colors usually show stronger dichroism. Natural blue: distinct (dark blue to greenish-blue); Natural green: weak (more or less yellow); Natural orange: strong (orange to yellow-brown or colorless); Natural purple: distinct (purple to pinkish); Natural ruby: strong (deep red to yellowish-red); Natural yellow: weak (yellow to light-yellow).
Birefringence (double refraction): Weak (.018)
Crystal structure: Hexagonal (trigonal), dipyramidal
Treatments: Heat treating to reduce silk is standard. Glass-filling voids in rubies is not considered an acceptable treatment.
Cutting: Corundum cuts and polishes at varying rates on different facets. Dont cut with a bonded lap at any finer grit than 600, otherwise an orange peel effect will make polishing a nightmare. Pre-polish with 8,000 grit on ceramic, zinc or copper lap helps speed up final polishing immensely.
Polishing: Ceramic with 100,000 or 200,000 diamond spray, or zinc lap with 50,000 or 100,000 diamond. BATT can be used as a polish lap, but is a little soft for corundum.
Sapphire is the second hardest crystal that Mother Earth has given us. Second only to the Diamond. Many of the large Sapphire deposits are literally the remains of metamorphic or igneous veins of granite and marble weathered away into stream beds and mountain valleys. Sapphire being stronger than granite or marble survive the weathering and large amounts of the stone are simply gathered from gem gravels in Burma, Thailand, Australia, North America, Brazil, Kashmir and Africa.
It's rare beauty and enduring strength made sapphire quite popular as a talisman among royalty. A medieval historian wrote that kings wore the crystal to protect them from harm, and to prevent jealousy among their court. A sapphire worn to the signing of a treaty was believed would ensure a true reconciliation and prevent further bloodshed. Lore also tells that a venomous snake left in a vessel with a sapphire would certainly die, as the gemstone provided protection from poison.
There is an ancient Persian myth which tells of a giant blue sapphire that Mother Earth rests upon, and that the sky is the reflection of this titan blue crystal. As you can see, sapphire, like its twin corundum, ruby, has etched a place in history, atop the crowns of kings and glorified in legend.
Scientific Properties:
Mohs Hardness of 9 with a trigonal crystal structure.
All gem quality corundum that is not red (ruby) is called sapphire, although the name is commonly associated with the color blue.
There are but trace amounts of minerals which separate this crystal into different gemstones. Corundum is an aluminum oxide crystal that became included with a variety of minerals to produce a rainbow of colors. Chromium will turn the crystal red, classifying it as a Ruby. The treasured blues come from Titaniu