Everything You Need to Know: RUBY Edition

Everything You Need to Know: RUBY Edition

Our world loves rubies! These beautiful stones can command the highest price per-carat of any colored stone... So, let’s find out more about this July birthstone!

WHERE?

Rubies appear in different geologic settings. Some form in metamorphic rock like amphibole and marble, which result from the transformation of preexisting rocks. The most renowned rubies typically form in marble, which is created by heat and pressure acting on limestone.

Myanmar, Vietnam, Kenya, and Mozambique are just a few of the main places rubies are found! However,  production within the country of Myanmar remains unstable. As of 2016, U.S. sanctions remain in place prohibiting the importation of ruby and jade from Myanmar.

WHAT TO LOOK FOR?

Color is the most important factor to look at when purchasing a Ruby. The finest rubies have a bright and vibrant red to slightly purplish red color. A color that has to much orange or purple in it is less desirable.

Clarity and Cut are important when purchasing a ruby as well. It is important to remember that finding a gemstone that has no inclusions within it is difficult. So, the price may vary depending on how visible the inclusions are. A nice even faceted cut on the gemstone will influence price as well!

When looking to purchase a ruby it is important to work with a jeweler you trust! Remember to...

1. Ask about treatments on your Ruby

2. When in doubt, get a lab report!

3. Don't confuse country of origin with quality, it varies!

HOW TO CARE FOR YOUR RUBY!

Corundum (ruby and sapphire) is relatively hard—9 on the Mohs scale. It has excellent toughness and no cleavage, which is a tendency to break when struck.

Warm soapy water is always safe to clean your ruby. Ultrasonic and steam cleaners are usually safe for untreated, heat-treated, and lattice diffusion treated stones. Fracture-filled, cavity-filled, or dyed material should only be cleaned with a damp cloth.

Untreated ruby and even heat-treated ruby are very durable. Stones that have undergone lattice diffusion treatment have varying degrees of treated-color penetration. In some stones, the treated color penetrates the entire stone, while others have very shallow treated-color penetration. This may cause your ruby to break within an ultrasonic! This is why it is important you ask your jeweler about treatments on your stone!

Gem Source Fine Jewelry offers a wide range of CERTIFIED Rubies for any birthday, anniversary, or special occasion. With July right around the corner, Ruby is one of the most stunning birthstones out there!

Remember when purchasing, always work with a jeweler you can trust for the most important occasions!

How to Protect Your Engagement Ring

Protect your diamond engagement ring from damage or loss by making the right buying decision and then keeping it like new for the rest of your life. Here are some tips on how to safeguard your treasured possession.

1. Before you buy, learn about diamond durability!

Diamonds are the hardest gemstones on earth – they rank 10 on the Mohs scale of hardness – but they can still suffer damage. Diamonds have clarity characteristics called blemishes and inclusions. Blemishes are confined to the diamond’s surface. Inclusions are internal characteristics either totally enclosed within a diamond or extending into the diamond from its surface.

2. Protect your diamond by choosing a secure setting.

A diamond in an engagement ring is often held in its mounting by prongs. A prong is a narrow metal support, typically used in groups of four to six. When it comes to protecting your diamond, a six-prong setting can offer more protection than a four-prong setting. In the event a prong breaks, a six-prong setting is more likely to hold the diamond in place. The two additional prongs might also provide a little extra protection for the girdle during daily wear. 

Another choice that offers considerable protection is the bezel setting – a style in which a thin metal strip is pushed or hammered around a gem to hold it in place. A bezel setting helps prevent the center stone from falling out, and it protects the girdle against bumps, bangs and other accidents.

3. After you buy, get your diamond appraised and insured!

Many insurance companies will require an appraisal in order to determine your diamond engagement ring’s replacement value. An appraisal is an evaluation of diamonds or other jewelry, usually for insurance or estate purposes. Appraisals normally provide a detailed description of the pieces being appraised, including the exact measurements of the important gemstones, together with (for diamonds) their color and clarity grades, plots showing the location of inclusions or blemishes, and information on the properties and make. They then state an estimated value. Gem Source offers full, professional, appraisals on all pieces!

4. Protect your diamond with regular check-ups!

Gem Source offers free jewelry check up's and cleaning during any of our open store hours!

It’s a good idea to get the prongs in your engagement ring checked every six months for potential damage. If this seems too frequent for you, use your yearly wedding anniversary as a convenient reminder to get the prongs checked. Many insurance companies also require that the ring receive regular check-ups. Contact your carrier to find its requirements.

Tightening prongs is a routine task for a bench jeweler. You can check if a prong is loose by seeing if the stone moves when you gently push it (if it moves, it’s loose). Gaps between the diamond and the setting are another warning sign. Look at the ring with a 10× loupe to help see such gaps and spot damaged prongs.

5. Keep your diamond ring clean!

Dirt won’t break or chip your diamond, but it will dull its appearance. You can clean your diamond by using a lint-free cloth or washing it with warm water, mild soap and a soft toothbrush. Don’t use abrasive household cleaners, or steam cleaners. Ultrasonic cleaners are safe for untreated diamonds; however, treated diamonds can be damaged by ultrasonic cleaners. You can briefly dip your diamond in a commercial jewelry cleaning solution.

It’s also a good idea to have your ring periodically cleaned by a professional jeweler. 

Tips for Buying an Engagement Ring

Are you looking to buy an engagement ring? Here are several things you need to know before you begin your search!

1. Know the 4C's

• Color: D-to-Z diamond color grades rate a diamond’s lack of color. Diamonds with less color are rarer.
• Cut: The quality of a diamond’s cut determines how well it unleashes its light.
• Clarity: Diamond clarity refers to the absence of inclusions and blemishes.
• Carat Weight: Diamond carat weight determines a diamond’s apparent size.

2. Understand the difference between diamond shapes, diamond cutting styles, and cut qualities!

Shape describes a diamond’s outline when viewed face up.  By far, the most popular diamond shape is round. But there are other shapes—known as fancy shapes—which include the marquise, pear, oval, rectangle, square and heart.

Cutting style refers to how the diamond’s facets are arranged.  For example, the most common facet arrangement for round diamonds is the standard brilliant cutting style

Cut quality refers to how well a diamond’s facets interact with light. Diamonds cut in the same shape and style can vary in table size, girdle thickness, polish and symmetry.

3. Pick a metal for the band

If you love the color of gold, consider that white metal prongs or bezels are often integrated into yellow gold bands to create contrast with the diamond. Rose gold is trending, has a warm and soothing appearance. Platinum is a gray-white metal that is elegant, extremely durable and corrosion resistant. Sterling silver is often used in jewelry but rarely in engagement rings, as it is not the most durable of metals and tarnishes over time.

4. Choose the setting

Here are three common types of settings:

1. Prong: A diamond is held in place with four to six prongs (narrow metal supports). When prongs are used to secure a single stone, the ring is often called a “solitaire.”

2. Bezel: For this engagement ring setting style, a thin metal strip is pushed or hammered around the gem to hold it in place. The bezel setting provides excellent protection for the center stone.

3. Halo: Tiny diamonds encircle the center stone. A halo can add more sparkle to an engagement ring and make the center stone look larger.

5. Pick side stones

Side stones are a dazzling way to dress up an engagement ring. Popular choices include channel or pavé set diamonds along the shank of the ring, diamond baguettes on either side of the center stone, and colored gems in any number of configurations.

6. Look at the diamond under different lighting conditions

When buying a diamond engagement ring, be sure to look at it under these four different lighting conditions to see how it performs:

1. An environment where spot lighting is not overwhelming
2. Diffused lighting—fluorescent lights that bounce light off a white ceiling are best
3. A mixed lighting environment of spot and diffused lighting
4. Natural daylight – directly under the sun, or under the dappled shade of a tree that breaks up the diamond’s light into thousands of slivers

7. Pick a trusted jeweler

Since an engagement ring is an expensive purchase, you’ll want to buy it from a jeweler you can trust. Tip – start by looking for a jeweler who has earned a credential from an accredited school like GIA. At Gem Source, our professional jeweler is GIA certified and able to offer you a grading report on the diamond of your choice.

8. Insist on a diamond grading report

When buying an engagement ring, insist on a diamond grading report. By giving you the exact quality characteristics of the diamond, the report will remove any uncertainty from your buying decision. The report will also indicate whether the diamond has been treated to enhance its color or clarity.

Pairing Wedding Bands & Engagement - Inspirational Looks

1. Stackable Wedding Bands
Stackable wedding bands are in – and for good reason. It’s a look that’s easy to personalize. It’s a style that can be changed to suit your moods, your outfit, the season and more. It’s also a way to add lots of melee diamonds – and that’s a good thing: The more diamonds on the band, the more diamond sparkle it will have. With so many pluses, it’s no surprise that stackable wedding bands are popular.

2. Rose Gold

Rose gold is a trending wedding band choice. Its warm tones are soothing and serene. Rose gold wedding bands can also make a bold statement when paired with the perennially popular white metals. Another benefit: Rose gold wedding rings complement most skin tones.

3. Vintage

Vintage designs capture the style and glamour of past eras – but have all the excitement that we’ve come to expect from modern creations. Does your engagement ring have a vintage style, like Art Deco, Art Nouveau or Edwardian? Why not carry the style through with your wedding band to create a themed and unified look? Brides-to-be with a taste for things of the past are making this one of the more popular trends for wedding bands.

4. Micro-Pave

Pavé is a setting style where numerous melee diamonds are set into the metal’s surface in a honeycomb pattern, nestled close to the stones next to them. It creates an appearance of uninterrupted diamonds. A field of diamonds is irresistible for its sparkle, and that has made the pavé look one of this year’s hottest trends in wedding bands.

What is a Diamond Inclusion?

Because diamonds form under tremendous heat and pressure, nearly every one possesses internal and external features called clarity characteristics. These characteristics help gemologists separate natural diamonds from synthetics and simulants, as well as identify individual gems.

Diamond clarity is one of the four quality factors (the 4Cs) that describe and determine the value of a diamond. By definition, clarity means “a gemstone’s relative freedom from inclusions and blemishes.” Both of these clarity characteristics can dim the brilliance of a diamond, though some are so minute that they are invisible to the naked eye, thus affecting the value of the stone.

There are many different types of inclusions, also known as internal clarity characteristics.  As diamonds form in extreme heat and under great pressure, small crystals can become trapped inside. This is a common inclusion. Many of these crystals can only be seen if the diamond is studied at 10x magnification. If the diamond has an irregular atomic structure, it can also have a clarity characteristic called graining. Graining looks like faint lines or streaks. Diamonds can also have internal breaks, formed during or after formation.

Blemishes occur after a diamond’s formation, during the cutting, mounting, and wearing of a polished diamond. Extra facets, polish lines or burns are examples of blemishes introduced during the manufacturing process. Nicks, scratches, chips and abrasions are examples of blemishes introduced during the handling, mounting or wearing of a diamond.

Many inclusions and blemishes are too tiny to be seen by anyone other than a trained diamond grader. In some cases, a diamond can have a flawless clarity, or a total absence of any blemish or inclusion. Since rarity and value are related, a diamonds with a flawless clarity are incredibly rare and thus, the most valuable of all diamonds.

What is a real diamond?

What is a "Real" Diamond?

Diamond is composed almost entirely of a single element, carbon. It forms under conditions of high temperature and pressure that cause its carbon atoms to bond in essentially the same way in all directions.

This definition of diamond applies to diamonds that come from the earth, as well as those that are created in a laboratory. It does not apply to other materials that might masquerade as diamonds.So when you ask a jeweler for a real diamond, you could be asking for a diamond created by nature or one created in a lab – since both materials qualify as diamond. Reputable jewelers avoid the term “real” altogether and clearly distinguish between natural diamonds, synthetic diamonds, and diamond simulants. Gem Source offers certifications for all natural diamonds sold from our store!

Natural diamonds are one of nature’s wonders. Billions of years old, they formed deep in the earth’s mantle and were brought to the surface by volcanic eruptions.

Synthetic diamonds however, are grown in a laboratory and have essentially the same chemical composition, crystal structure and physical properties as natural diamonds. They are not fakes, but they’re not natural. These synthetic diamonds vary in price and value.

Simulated diamonds on the other hand may look like diamonds, but they do not have the same chemical, physical and optical properties as regular diamonds. Any gem can be imitated by natural materials that closely resemble that particular gem. Various materials have been used for centuries to simulate diamonds, such as glass and colorless quartz, topaz, sapphire, beryl and especially zircon, among other gem materials. If you’re shopping for a diamond imitation, be sure you know what you’re getting and what you’re not!

If you’re considering a natural diamond for an engagement ring, be sure to ask for a grading certificate! The report is your proof that the diamond is natural and that its quality is what the seller describes, giving you the important information you need to make your purchase with confidence.