It’s the layered make-up of the feldspar that makes this such a generally fractured and included stone, but which also gives it its characteristic sheen, or adularescence, as the light refracts off the layers within the stone and returns to the eye as a bright blue, aqua, green or gold sheen. It is this make-up that also means that clean material is rather rare. These stones are on sale in my website for $4.65 per stone; to shop, click here.
I’ve got lots of new labradorite in at the moment; these are oval cabochons. I have 6x4mm, 7x5mm and 8x10mm to go with the 8x6mm and 10x12mm I already have in stock. As with all of my labradorite, I stick to the Madagascan material, which means a light, translucent body-colour with a vibrant flash. I have a variety of colours; blue, aqua, green and gold. This is very nice quality material, but that doesn’t mean it is entirely free of fractures; labradorite (and moonstone for that matter) is a stone composed of many layers and so to find completely clean material is quite difficult. The bigger the stone, the more difficult it becomes. It’s getting a little bit ‘grab it whilst you can’ as I am finding it harder and harder to source this, especially in larger sizes. As I wrote in my previous post, the Inuit claim that labradorite fell from the frozen fire of the aurora borealis, which I think is just the most wonderful, magical piece of lore imaginable! You can find all of my oval labradorite by clicking here. Prices start from $1.30 per stone for a 6x4mm labradorite oval.
Below, the beauty of Madagascan labradorite is complemented beautifully by the cool sheen of sterling silver in Kira Ferrer’s labradorite and sterling silver set of 5 stacking rings.
For those of you in the know; it’s double diamond points all this month in my online shop. For those of you who are not, how about opening an account? All you have to do is set up a store account (or log in with your existing one) and points will be automatically awarded as you shop. 500 points earns you a $5 discount; 1000 points a $10 one and so on. This month, there’s a 400 point welcome bonus for setting up an account, 2 points for every $1 spent, and if you refer a friend, they will receive a 10% discount and you will get a massive 1000 points when they place their first order! There are points also for liking and sharing my Facebook page, following and sharing my Twitter page and following me on Instagram (I’m called simply and obviously joopygems). So what are you waiting for?! Dive in to my cornucopia of gems!
Or parti-coloured tourmaline, to give it its correct title. Not, as my slightly po-faced GIA instructor said, as in, ‘let’s have a party.’ That may have been a joke. It was slightly hard to tell. New in stock, I have more pieces of this most beautiful and fascinating of stones in a breathtaking array of colours. I have new slices and some rose cut (polki) pieces, and each piece has been hand-selected by me for either its pattern – complex or simple, its colour – unusual or gorgeous, its unusual combinations of colours, or it’s saturation – saturated or subtle. The green and orange polki, top left, or the teal green surrounded by black slice towards the top right; the pale pink and blue polkis, of which I have several, and blue is always a popular colour that goes fast.
Clarity of these stones can be rather mixed, but most of these are not bad and many have the kind of clarity characteristics that I think are rather beautiful; for instance you can see mirror-like inclusions on several of the stones, which sparkle as the light catches them with a spectral flash. Tourmaline crystals are very distinctive; broadly triangular in shape with striations down the sides and the colour zoning is due to a change in the concentration or composition of the trace elements that give the stone its colour during its growth. Iron, titanium and manganese induce different colours and yet others might be due to colour centres caused by radiation. To shop watermelon slices, click here; to shop freeform rose cuts (polki), click here.
So many gorgeous examples of watermelon tourmaline jewellery around, but if I had to pick out one I have long coveted Barbara Heinrich Studio’s watermelon tourmaline slice necklace. This also has hand-fabricated 18k gold shell elements and gold tube spacers. Love those gold shells, echoing the shape of the tourmaline slices, and love the matched-but-not-matched slices.
Just listed I have these gorgeous turquoise rose cut freeforms. There’s something very pleasing about a faceted opaque stone. Maybe because it’s rather unexpected, but I always think that turquoise lends itself so well to this cut. Maybe it’s because it’s not a cheap stone, and you can go to a generous size whilst still maintaining some kind of strangle-hold on the budget strings. And you all must agree with me because it’s one of the stones in this cut that I struggle to keep in stock – whatever I have just goes. So I am assuming the same will be true of this latest lot of new stock. I’ve been a bit brave and gone for some much larger ones than usual. The 12 or so carat one above with the lovely chunk of pyrite on the side – I think that’s gorgeous; I’ve got my eye on that one for my own collection, if someone doesn’t beat me to it. I don’t know how you feel about inclusions; I know not everyone loves them but I rather do, especially the silvery pyrite one often gets on turquoise – I think that’s really special. I also rather love the 2.4 carat one speckled with pyrite and dark matrix – so unusual. But if you’re a purist, then you can’t do better than the 7.6 carat triangle; just clean, clear turquoise, polished to perfection.
This cut lends itself particularly well to rings – big showy affairs that’ll make your fingers think all their Christmasses have come. Below, clockwise from left, I love the fierceness of the Turquoise Rose Cut Cage ring in 14k gold by Lex Luxe. Perfectly illustrating my point about the loveliness of pyrite inclusion is Erin Jane Designs’ Turquoise Ring in Recycled 14k gold. And see how that pyrite picks echoes the metal in the setting? And bottom right is Janish Jewels’ Rose Cut Sleeping Beauty Turquoise Twig Ring. Love the textured metal on the shank.
To shop turquoise rose cut freeforms, click here. Prices start from $17.
Talk about cryptic. But those of you in the know will realise I am talking about golden rutilated quartz. And those of you who know me will also know that I absolutely love this stuff. I’ve had it in freeform (polki) rose cuts for a while, but I’m just now offering it in cabochons, 8mm and 10mm round in the first instance. We’ll see how popular it is, and then I might offer it in other sizes or shapes. So rutilated quartz is also known as sagenitic quartz, or sagenite, (although I confess I’ve never come across it being called that, and I’ve been around the ‘gemstone block’ for quite a few years now, so it must be quite rare). What you have is clear to semi-transparent quartz included with rutile which has crystallised into needles. These appear in an amazing variety of forms; really fine, hence the name ‘angel hair’ to really thick, like lengths of straw. They may be sparse or dense; oriented into patterns – hence ‘wheatsheaf’ or randomly criss-crossed, but all are fascinating. The golden colour catches the light and gleams warm and gold. It looks great with silver or gold, and is the perfect stuff for creating something unique, as every piece is unique. I love the elegant simplicity of the pieces below, from left: Moon and Forge Studio’s rutilated quartz ring set in 14k yellow gold and sterling silver, at $315; Nijiko Designs’ rutilated quartz, 18k gold and sterling silver earrings at $175 and Chiara Batelier’s rutilated quartz pendant set in 18k gold
To shop 8mm rutilated quartz cabochons at $6 per stone, click here; to shop the 10mm cabochons at $8.25, click here
Out now; my March 2016 newsletter with a round-up of new additions, gemstone news and the all-important reader offer – this month a birthstone offer – which I have interpreted very widely, taking in many different birthstone systems and adopting a very loose interpretation, to apply to all aquamarine and agate across my store. That’s cabochons, rose cuts, gemstones, beads and freeforms, all on 15% off for the month of March. Click here to open the newsletter and pick up the discount code, or go to www.joopygems.com to sign up and make sure you never miss out!
Otherwise known as the Big 3. The stuff of magic. Ruby, sapphire and emerald. This tends to be material that I have for a while then scrabble around trying to replace because it’s hard to find in nice quality at the right price. But it’s always really popular – and I am really excited to have just listed these – 3mm rose cut ruby, emerald and sapphire. The ruby is a deep pinkish-red and is $24 per stone; and good news, it’s from Mozambique, so can be sold to US customers (unlike Burmese material). The sapphire a deep, cornflower blue, and $13 per stone. Both of these have some inclusions, which I viewed under my microscope; fingerprints tiny included crystal
s and some evidence of heat treatment, as is very common with corundum, both ruby and sapphire. The sapphire also has some angular colour zoning, not very obvious. Now I know that clarity is the holy grail for many people but for me, I am always glad to see a bit of the included crystals and fingerprints, as well as the angular colour zoning, because it helps me to see that what we have here is natural, as opposed to synthetic material. Most exciting of all, because I’ve never carried it before, is the rose cut emerald. It’s a nice shade of quite light blueish-green, quite strongly bluish. As you tend to expect with emerald, it’s quite 
included with parallel needles, crystals and liquid inclusions. I’m also seeing some evidence of fracture filling and indeed, I would be very surprised if it were not as some 95% of emerald is fracture filled, either with oil or resin. However, the stones are small and the clarity appears pretty good to the naked eye, with nice lustre. The emerald is $8.75 per stone.Now, I don’t have many of any of these except the emerald, but I will be getting more. To shop the 3mm rose cuts, for sapphire, click here, for ruby, click here and for emerald, click here.
It’s so hard to keep this material in stock. 3mm rainbow moonstone cabochons, clean quality. I also try not to run out of it, and re-order before it’s completely gone, but then someone comes along and buys up the entire stock, and we can’t find the rough and before I know where we are, I’m out for months! Anyway, this is the first of the 3mm and 4mm restock – plain cabochons, now $1.55 per stone. There’s so much of the cloudy, fractured material about, that when you see a clear stone with bright adularescence (or flash) it can take your breath away. In fact, a customer said to me just yesterday, having received her stones ‘is this real?’ Because the extreme, billowing flash can have an almost unreal appearance. It’s truly astonishing. (Answer, by the way, is yes, it is real. As far as I am aware, this is not synthesised at all). Harder and harder – and very expensive – to find in larger sizes, I can still just about put my hands on it for smaller sizes. Now, I’m not a fan of AAA etc grading systems as it is so subjective, and not standardised, but I do use it for moonstone as I carry such a wide range of qualities. This is AAA material, and for that you can expect clean stones with great adularescence. As for what to do with it, below is a lesson in perfect, understated elegance from one of my lovely customers. This sterling silver and rainbow moonstone ring from Brightsmith features a 3mm moonstone on a narrow, hammered silver band, $28.
To shop 3mm AAA cabochons, click here; to shop all my AA and AAA rainbow moonstone, click here. To shop my entire range, click here.
Now back in stock, ever popular 3mm turquoise cabochons! These are one of the (actually many now) stones that I struggle to keep in stock. This material is light greenish-blue with a bit of a colour range going from a bit more green to a bit more blue – do shout if you have a preference. It’s stabilised, as is very common with turquoise, but not dyed. There’s a bit of matrix on the underside of some of the stones, but not across the top and hey, at least you know it’s real! It’s pale tan matrix, so for those of you who are interested, this tells you that the turquoise formed in sandstone. Now, turquoise is quite strongly linked with the ‘southwestern’ style of jewellery, but it also lends itself very well to smaller, sleeker designs, and works equally well with both silver and gold. For inspiration, below are some examples of small-scale, perfectly formed turquoise jewellery. From left: Holly Presley’s turquoise ring features a 3mm turquoise sitting on an organic drop of silver; Rita Moehler’s sterling silver turquoise bangle features six turquoise stones on a solid silver ridged band; Melanie Casey’s set of 5 gold stack rings features 3mm and 4mm turquoise stones (and one green chalcedony!) set in solid 14k gold and Thalassa Jewellery’s silver pod earrings feature 3mm turquoise stones set in oxidised silver pods.
To shop 3mm cabochons, click here; to browse all turquoise cabochons, click here.
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