Im glad you do, Paoul. Thanks

Thank you for your kind words. There are thresholds that KZfaq puts in place before a channel is more widely visible. Hopefully I'll be able to break that glass ceiling before too long. Cheers, and keep your eyes out for more.

My pleasure, Sarah. Thanks for the encouragement.

Hi Jessica ~ I'm very glad to hear that you enjoy my work. Best of luck to you on your journey and keep your eyes peeled for more in the days to come.

Cheers, Debbie ~ i'm glad my work is of service to you.

My pleasure~ im glad it was both useful and amusing.

My pleasure, Gaby.

I fully support your goal of getting the highest quality material that you can get your hands on. Its much better to have 1 excellent stone than 10 - 100 mediocre stones. With rubies, sapphires and spinels you can find some incredible material at the 0.25carat range. That said - the price and rarity of the material goes up a lot as you cross the 0.50ct threshhold and then getting closer and then over the 1ct threshhold. SO if you're using stones as an investment vehicle, its better to get an exceptional 1 carat stone than having five 0.20 carat stones of the same colour and quality. That said, follow your heart with the budget you've got available. If you know that you enjoy (and can sell) all those 0.20ct stones, I'm not going to get in your way ^_^ Especially as you're getting accustomed to the quality levels of stones that you like, buying smaller/less expensive stones of the highest quality you can find is a GREAT way to get your skin in the game and make you remember the qualities of what is out there. As with everything, its the rare and the special that is truly valuable. Thanks for the comment.

@@GemologyforSchmucks thankyou

Thanks very much~ glad you enjoyed it.

Thanks Trav!~

Thanks~ I also enjoy unique things. Overly cookie-cutter products crush my soul.

@@GemologyforSchmucks Exactly! I feel the same way.

Thanks Kay~

Thank you - i'm glad to be of service.

Awwww shucks, Thanks Ray~

Cheers, Jamie~

I feel the same way about natural stones ~ i'm all for some quirks and weirdness. I just want to know that its mine. This is just like I like a clean environment, but I can handle a little wear and tear and wouldn't want to live in a hospital or spend any amount of time there.

Thanks for the comment, and there are many who will agree with you. From an ethics point of view, I can definitely agree with you. Even as a commodity for trinkets, I agree with you. For holding wealth, I prefer rarer things that can be curated.

I'm glad that my channel is of value to you~ thanks for the comment and your encouragement Dion.

My pleasure, Chandra.

Thanks Tim

My pleasure~ i'm glad to serve.

Thanks very much. Colour changing capacity is a chemistry thing~

Thanks very much~!

Thanks very much~ i'm glad that you enjoy my work.

@@GemologyforSchmucks i dont know if you like that but i have sent u an insta dm i have some more questions as a noob and you seem ao chill and trustworthy 🤣

@@AmateurTP Thanks for the vote of confidence~ instagram can be pretty hit or miss. If you shoot me an email at thegemshepherd@gmail.com we can dive into your questions

My pleasure, Ifthiqar.

Thanks very much~

Happy to help~

Thanks Alcvin~ the intricacies of dying agate and other porous stones is not something I have a depth of knowledge about. There's so much natural agate that is attractive, that it seemed more worthwhile to me to identify when it's been treated and ignore it.

I'm glad you've found some stones that delight you. Finding someone locally who has an understanding of stone identification would be important, as professionals don't identify based on pictures. There are too many stones that appear similar, but have different properties, which need to be tested in person with instruments such as the refractometer.

Fantastic - im glad it brought you value.

Hey! Pretty sure i was just looking around at the grandidierite on your ebay.

Hi Jonathan~ To my understanding, that type of specimen takes natural quartz as a base and then they deposit synthetic quartz on top of it to "grow" it. So yes - that would make it a fascinating man-made product. Science~!

Hi Debbie~ Thanks for reaching out, and i'm glad that you've got this trove of jewels from your uncle. The content on this channel is a good start as far as discovering what stones may be in your collection, though you'd definitely need a few instruments to do the tests. I have several tutorials on the channel for using the refractometer, polariscope, and loupe, which is where I would begin with all of those stones. If those instruments are more of an investment than you'd like to make, I would suggest contacting a gemologist near you who has these instruments and negotiating a deal with them to identify the stones in your collection. Cheers~

Glad to assist on your path to knowledge~

It's definitely eye catching.

HI ~ for astrological advice, you'll want to seek out someone who deals with astrology. The average gemologist does not have much if any knowledge on the topic, as it falls outside of the realm of what we study. Some people only see it as a selling tool, and others have faith in its impact, so I recommend that you look to those in the second group for more information.

Hi Gelfling Music~ Rough and loose are typically to very different things for gemstones. Rough means the gem materials that come out of the earth or as we find them in a river. This could have a well formed crystal shape, or it could just be a cracked and crunched up pebble, or something that has been worn by the water of a river. It is completely unshaped by man. Loose gems are typically cut and polished so that they look like what we know as a gemstone. If you watched Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, when the dwarves are mining, they pull out stones that look already cut/faceted and polished bright. This is what we would call a "loose gem." Thanks for the question.

Heat treatments are definitely stable treatments. In normal conditions once a colour has been achieved by heat treatment, it doesnt fade or change. Irradiation (typical with yellow and orange sapphires) however is incredibly unstable and is a major difficulty for dealers and buyers alike.

I'd definitely stay away from glass-filled stones, as you don't know whether or not they used heavy metals in the filler. For general jewelry purposes, it's fine, but if it were in the body im not sure that it would be a great idea. Most of the health issues i've heard about relating to stone treatments is to do with the process itself, not some issue with the stone after the process is complete. I would investigate beryllium treated sapphires further if you're planning to use them in body jewelry. I think those would be the pieces that you'd be most likely to come across, as they're visually grabbing and also substantially cheaper than your average ruby/sapphire. I myself don't have specific information on that for you on that topic, unfortunately.

Excellent - I whole-heartedly encourage you to do so. As those wiser than myself have often said: when we stop learning, we die.

I have mixed feelings about them. On the one hand I find them fascinating and they provide a lot of beauty for a low price point, and on the other they're super plentiful, so I have no desire to buy them unless the sale is already confirmed and the client knows exactly what they're getting (no refunds on that for me...). At the end of the day, a gemstone needs to be beautiful, durable and rare. Beryllium sapphires check boxes one and two, but not #3 for me. If you're making a line of jewelry and you want beautiful, durable and a better price point for your consumers, as long as you disclose the treatment clearly, then I see no problems.

Hopefully that will be something I can make a video on at some point, but the short answer is that colour concentrations around the facet junctions are typically a giveaway. Diffused light can help reveal this.

Hi Natalia~ from a pure aesthetic point of view, people are definitely welcome to like whatever they like. A super high price tag can be placed next to any stone that is rare, popular etc, but if I don't like it, it's not going to motivate me to buy eh? There are many inexpensive stones that have some really attractive one of a kind pieces available, and thats really what is at the heart of collecting anything. We're all looking for a thing that someone else doesn't have. Your logic is absolutely on point, yes. On the other side however, i'll say that the more I see high quality (and high value) gemstones, I find that my eye catches differences, and I keep getting seduced by high quality natural stones long after the more common stones have lost their appeal. It's a strange thing indeed.

As I don't live in the US, I haven't seen much of Costco's supply of coloured stones, nor do I know what they sell on that side. I know that they sell heaps and heaps of diamonds though, as does Walmart.

Hi ~ the metaphysical properties of stones are typically not the specialty of gemologists. We deal more with the specifically measurable or visually observable attributes of gemstones.

XD

Hi ~ irradiation is far outside of my purview, so the short answer is no. In Thailand I know its only *legally* done by one of the government ministries, and they're supposed hold the goods until trace radioactivity is below a standard safe threshold. Cheers

Hi Roua ~ Excellent question. If it is declared, then any treatment can be acceptable (for the right price). Waxing and Oiling are two different treatments, and both are very common (and often undeclared). These are both generally considered temporary treatments, and gemstones such as jadeite are USUALLY waxed. People dont even talk about it because it is simply expected. If you get jade repolished in the future, rewaxing is often a part of the service provided. With oiling (whether oils or using synthetic polymers or resins) the story is a little different. Many emeralds are 'oiled' to some degree and have been for millennia and this is accepted in the trade. HOWEVER~! The amount the emerald has been oiled changes the value of the stone. An emerald that has insignificant/no oil is usually sold at a different price from a stone that has minor or moderate oil ranking, even if everything else (size, colour, origin etc.). This is one of the things that makes emeralds complex to deal in. Which stone are you looking at, may I ask?

@@GemologyforSchmucks I was looking to purchase natural gemstone beads from alibaba. The owner told me the gemstone beads are natural. When I was looking at his listing it also did say that the treatment applied was waxing/oiling. I don't want to get scammed but I feel since his pdf states what is glass, natural and dyed. He may be honest about what he is selling. what do you think? Is it bad to add wax/oil to gemstone beads?

@@Ruru4294 which gemstone? Especially if it's one of the typical stones such as emeralds or jade, then no it's not a bad thing, especially since the treatment is being disclosed. There are many sellers that simply do not disclose and treated materials are sold cheaply as "natural" to the final consumer. That should not make you more comfortable.

Hi Starry Purple~ The metaphysical properties and uses of stones is a specialization different from the one I work in. I'm a gemologist, so I work with identifying gemstones according to their physical properties and recognizing if they have been treated or enhanced in anyway. You can think of me like a pharmacist ~ I can provide and tell you about what you have in hand, but you'll want to talk to a doctor who can give you a prescription.

Does the water remain blue when the stone is taken out of the water?

@@GemologyforSchmucks Yes

@@rrichards146 If the water is turning blue after the stone is taken out, then its most likely that someone tried to cheaply dye the stone with ink from a bic pen or blue oil. Even super super cheap blue sapphires are filled with glass that has blue pigments - and these stones will not dye the water blue. Natural stones that have not been treated in this way will definitely not dye the water blue.

@@GemologyforSchmucks Thanks so much for your help

@@GemologyforSchmucks What is the reason for them to color the gem?

Glad you enjoy it and benefit from my verbage XD

That is a very involved topic. There are different types of kilns, but more important is knowing how to control the heat (speed of raising the temperature, and controlling the level of temp) and the environment (oxygenating or reducing). May be the right time to learn though ~ many of the experienced heaters are getting old, and a whole generation of knowledgeable people is getting ready to retire, and many of their kids really dont care about gemstones.

thank you sir im just wondering how to heat just put in fire hehehe

@@gemstonesexplorers7018 That is a good way to have your stones explode, if you ask me. A bit like asking: How do I make the perfect steak in the microwave? It's your life though ~ have fun with it :D

really? hehehe sorry im just a beginner trying to search hehehe

@@gemstonesexplorers7018 searching is good ~ breaking expensive stones is bad XD. Cheers

Thanks for your contribution~

Welcome to the crew~!

Hi Roy ~ some pieces are better than others, but i'll say that it's not something I want to own or deal in personally.

Thanks~

I do indeed. Obscurventure

You're Welcome, Chandra