While traveling in Malawi last May, I had the opportunity to buy some gemstone rough. The great majority of stones offered were of little interest, but we were shown one parcel of superbly color aquamarine that made us all look twice.
Aquamarine rough this color is not common and always in demand. As is usually the case, most of these stones were either too included or off shape to be of use. The two pieces to the right, however, were very nice indeed.
Since I was traveling and buying with other cutters & we make a point to play nice, we each took turns choosing from the good pieces. I ended up with the stone on the bottom right.
After I got the rough back to my shop, it spent some time on my bench being poked around. I find I do this with finer rough. Somehow it helps me figure out what the final stone is supposed to be. But my pokey meditations were interrupted by one of my favorite custom jewelers, Shannon from Raintree in Vermont.
Periodically, I had been producing a very specific, custom version of the Old European Cut (OEC) round in aqua for Raintree. Shannon told me they wanted to create a larger, higher quality version of their Kaleidoscope Ring and enter it into the AGTA Spectrum Awards competition. The choice Malawi aqua rough had just found a purpose in life.
The shape of the rough was a little deceiving. It looks decently square in this image, but the stone is more of a wedge shape with it’s center of mass off to one side. A pretty common problem with rough. Still, a good size rough at about 5 grams and one I was very happy to have acquired. I gladly would have bought more.
Comparatively clean, the rough still had some issues to work around. The OEC round design I created would not allow for any visible inclusions; there is quite literally no place to hide in the large open facets of this design. We had set a 9.5mm target for the stone, hoping for larger. But really the final size is up to the rough: it all came down to whether there was an orientation that both removed the inclusions and allowed the needed width from the rough. I think I spent more time slowly preforming this piece than I did with the actual faceting. Happily, the rough allowed me to cut a 10mm round stone. Not a high yield from the rough, but a fantastic result for the project.
From this point, it was all up to Shannon & Mike at Raintree and they really stepped up to the challenge. Several weeks later, I was thrilled to get a call from Shannon letting me know they had won a the Manufacturing Honors Award in Business & Day Wear category. Given the number of designers who enter the Spectrum competition ever year, it’s no small feat.
Official results from the 2018 AGTA Specturm Awards: 2018 AGTA Spectrum winners (scroll through the “Business and Day Wear” Category)
Raintree’s write-up about the award winning ring: https://www.raintreevt.com/2018-spectrum-award/.
Earlier journal entry about this adaptation of the classic OEC round design: Old European Cut