Precious Stone suggestions....
- Thread starter stosh
- Start date
stosh said:
I've always liked Australian opals...
Um, I thought sapphires were very hard...
Diamond, hardness 10 (carbon)
Sapphire, hardness 9 (corundum)
Ruby, hardness 9 (red corundum)
Emerald, hardness 8 (green beryl)
Topaz, hardness 8 (silicate of aluminum)
Aquamarine, hardness 7.5-8 (a form of beryl)
edit: quick Google search yielded:
http://www.chicagowoodturners.com/turning_precious_semiprecious_stones.htm
Sapphire, hardness 9 (corundum)
Ruby, hardness 9 (red corundum)
Emerald, hardness 8 (green beryl)
Topaz, hardness 8 (silicate of aluminum)
Aquamarine, hardness 7.5-8 (a form of beryl)
edit: quick Google search yielded:
http://www.chicagowoodturners.com/turning_precious_semiprecious_stones.htm
Well... Compared to a diamond, anything is extremely soft... Diamonds are 4x as hard as sapphires. But if you don't want a diamond, you won't find much harder than sapphiresstosh said:
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Sapphires are pretty. Julie will be jealous.
Dude, get her a diamond.
The important thing is, if you put a perfect diamond in a shield, you get +19 to all resistances, whereas if you put a perfect sapphire in a weapon, all you get is +12 cold damage. So obviously diamonds are much harder.
Dork.Echo said:
:nuts:
stosh said:
I hear you... after seeing a Nova program on DeBeers several years ago, there ain't no way in hell I'd ever buy a diamond again.
For one thing they are not all that rare, it's just that basically one family controls the world's supply.
My wife's wedding band and engagement ring both have several sapphires in them and they are holding up just fine after 3+ years and she is really hard on her jewelry - she busts up watches on a regular basis.
More than 20 years ago journalist Edward Jay Epstein wrote the definitive expose of the diamond business, initially published in the Atlantic Monthly in 1982 and subsequently as a book, The Rise and Fall of Diamonds. Epstein, it must be said, is a conspiracy buff, but his research on diamonds is pretty credible. His central contention is that diamonds have little inherent value; their perennially high price is solely a function of clever promotion and ruthless manipulation of the market. You ask: Isn't that true of any high-value product? Nope. Take gold, a true commodity in the sense that it's fungible, as the economists say--like quantities of gold are freely interchangeable. Gold's purity can be readily assayed and it's indestructible for practical purposes, making it a reliable store of value. Even now that the world has abandoned the gold standard, gold's price has held up well on the open market.N8 said:
Not so with diamonds. Despite the hype, diamonds aren't forever; they can be damaged or destroyed. The value of diamonds varies widely depending on grade and, despite efforts at standardization, is basically arbitrary--experts often disagree sharply on the worth of a particular gem. Sure, the same can be said of paintings or other collectibles. The difference is that the world diamond market is largely controlled by a single private enterprise, the South Africa-based De Beers cartel. The geniuses behind De Beers recognized early on that a stable, profitable diamond industry depended on controlling both supply and demand. De Beers rarely discovers new sources of diamonds; rather, it focuses on controlling existing ones, limiting production, and if necessary buying up surplus gems and stockpiling them to prop up the market. It sets prices arbitrarily and cuts off supplies to dealers who buy through unauthorized channels. On the marketing side, De Beers hired advertising firms, starting with N.W. Ayer in the late 1930s, to render axiomatic the idea that diamonds = true love. De Beers and Ayer didn't invent diamond engagement rings but did rescue a fading concept--in 1932 worldwide diamond sales had been only $100,000. Ayer's ploys ranged from planting news stories about newly betrothed celebrities flaunting big rocks to positioning diamonds as heirlooms, preventing the market from being flooded with secondhand goods. (The market for used diamonds is dismal, by the way.) The campaign worked--U.S. wholesale diamond sales increased from $23 million in 1939 to $2.1 billion in 1979. The J. Walter Thompson agency performed a similar miracle in Japan in the 1960s, essentially creating a tradition of diamond engagement rings out of thin air.
Throughout all this De Beers has successfully fended off threats due to political upheaval, competing producers, and even the U.S. justice department (the firm recently paid a $10 million fine to settle an antitrust case). The big challenge today is synthetic diamonds. In a widely noted article last fall, Wired magazine reported on two start-up firms, one in Florida and the other in Boston, that had begun manufacturing gem-quality artificial diamonds. Synthetic diamonds have been available since the 1950s and are commonly used in industrial abrasives, but till now have made little headway in the gem market due to prohibitive manufacturing expense. Supposedly the new artificial diamonds, particularly those made by chemical vapor deposition (CVD), are both cheap to produce and, unlike knockoffs such as cubic zirconium, virtually indistinguishable from natural diamonds even in the lab.
So, the jig's up for De Beers, right? Maybe, maybe not. The last chapter of The Rise and Fall of Diamonds, entitled "The Coming Crash of 1983," described a scenario in which a concatenation of factors, including a flood of diamonds from new mines in Australia, would trigger "the final collapse of world diamond prices." It didn't happen (although De Beers did lose market share), and Epstein has omitted the chapter from the online version of his book. De Beers has dodged plenty of disasters in its history, and I'd hesitate to write the final pages yet.
IMO they are nice as a garnish to a colored stone but thats it.
My friends, Heather and Brad, avoid Diamonds exactly for the reasons that everyone else states.... one family, slavery, ridiculousness in general.....
This happened just last year... some poor guy in Africa found a 182 carat diamond, and he disappeared (he didn't want the attention):
he might have been killed if he hadn't turned it over to the authorities
Heather and Brad got a custom ring, platinum band with a beautiful tension mounted square sapphire. It's gorgeous, though I would advise anyone to stay away from tension mounts.
If you're looking for a huge rock, look towards the southern cross....
10 Billion Trillion Trillion Carats
This happened just last year... some poor guy in Africa found a 182 carat diamond, and he disappeared (he didn't want the attention):
he might have been killed if he hadn't turned it over to the authorities
Heather and Brad got a custom ring, platinum band with a beautiful tension mounted square sapphire. It's gorgeous, though I would advise anyone to stay away from tension mounts.
If you're looking for a huge rock, look towards the southern cross....
10 Billion Trillion Trillion Carats
stosh said:
One of the most beautiful pieces of jewelry I've ever seen was a PINK sapphire. It was awesome!
So ya'll think that the industry producing and controlling colored stones is any better?
You can't possibly be that naive, can you?
What about precious metal mines? The average gold mine isn't any picnic nor are the industries controlling that market either.
You can't possibly be that naive, can you?
What about precious metal mines? The average gold mine isn't any picnic nor are the industries controlling that market either.
IMHO, the whole thing is a little silly.stosh said:
It's like protesting Abercrombe & Fitch sweatshops by buying American Eagle. One is really no better than the other, it's only a perceptual thing. You've heard more about A&F, so you assume AE must be better.
Buy the gemstone that your girlfriend likes more. The whole jewelery industry is bad, but then, many other industries are as well.
Why not buy one of those Russian-pressed diamonds? You know - the manufactured ones.......... no slavery involved there, methinks.
Or go really principled and get cubic zirconia.
-S.S.-
Or go really principled and get cubic zirconia.
-S.S.-
Or you could just buy her a hemp ring...SkaredShtles said:Why not buy one of those Russian-pressed diamonds? You know - the manufactured ones.......... no slavery involved there, methinks.
Or go really principled and get cubic zirconia.
-S.S.-
...ya' dirty hippy. :nuts:
You could also buy her a vintage diamond/ring. No new income to diamond industry, usually great quality/unique settings and you can rest assured that the tortured soul who extracted it is likely dead and no longer suffering for your materialistic needs.
most precious stones=your nads. make sure you have theese first. 
HAHA. sorry i couldnt resist. just see whats cheap on the home shopping network.
HAHA. sorry i couldnt resist. just see whats cheap on the home shopping network.
I'm pretty sure you realize this but it really doesn't matter what you like....stosh said:
N8 said:
Yup, I saw that one too. The GF said no diamonds... I got her two anyway.
A sapphire is the way to go. Very hard, and available in all different colors, including white. Interisting factoid I found out while ring shopping... there are no red sapphires... red sapphires are RUBIES. And rubies are red sapphires. They can get expensive when they get over 2 carats and if they are not heat treated (most are) and the clarity of the stone is good. "Loup clean" I believe they call it. Oh, Blue and Pink are the most expensive of the sapphires. If you are going blue, you want a deep dark color with no flaws or inclusions in it.
Good luck in the quest!
I looked around for them before x-mas. Couldn't find them anywhere.SkaredShtles said:
Just articles about how it was done.
wether you believe me or not my GF will love what-ever I get her. This is my gift to her so I had better like it. I'm putting a lot of thought and time into it because I want to make is special. Diamonds aren't special IMO and she knows and respects that.DRB said:
Hmmmmmm...... if this is *actually* the case, I'd go with the hemp ring. Call it sort of a "test".stosh said:
-S.S.-
stosh said:
A black opal...the lightnings inside in all colors looks soooo nice !!!
dan-o said:
HAHAHA!