My Cut Stones

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Left to Right;  1.  4.196 carat Bi-colored Tourmaline(olive green and lilac pink) cut using Jeff Graham's "Easy Emerald" cut.  2.  Blue Glass from the smelting pots at the Kaiser Aluminum plant in Mead, Wa. cut with Fred Van Sant's "Novice 1" square cut. 3.  .90 carat Amethyst SRB 4.  .57 carat Spinel SRB 5.  .324 carat Montana Sapphire SRB, diachroic stone; green/peach(showing peach here)

Left to Right;  .453 carat Copper Shiller Sunstone SRB,  1 carat Copper Shiller Sunstone cut with Fred Van Sant's "Novice 1" square cut.

This is the first "Free Form" cut opal I had ever done.  It is approximately 20mm X 15mm X 6mm.  The rough opal came out of a 1 oz. bag of Australian Opal I purchased at the hobby shop at Kunsan A.B., Korea while I was stationed there with the USAF.  Kunsan is where I learned the art of Lapidary under the instruction of Mike Yi, to whom I am greatly indebted to. I gave this opal to my Mother as a gift.  Several years later my Father took the opal to a jeweler in Fairbanks, AK, to have it set but the first one he showed it to refused to touch it.  They recommended another jeweler who was accustomed to working with opal.  This jeweler did a marvelous job.  He was also a GIA certified gemologist and he appraised the stone at $750.00, that was in 1982.  Not bad for a $20 bag of cutting material!  My Mother cherishes this necklace and the picture does not do it justice.  The green is a very bright neon green and is in a solid sheet with some small yellow plates showing when you turn it.

1.70 carat Andamooka "Honey Matrix" opal.  It measures about 12 X 7mm

Cut Stones Page 2