Post subject: Do these inclusions make it synthetic?
Posted: Mon Jun 20, 2011 4:40 pm
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Has anybody here been familiar with these types of inclusions, and if they could be synthetic or natural? If there is no way of knowing based on a picture, that is fine.
Post subject: Re: Do these inclusions make it synthetic?
Posted: Mon Jun 20, 2011 8:37 pm
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Joined: Sun Jun 12, 2011 11:55 pm Posts: 10
Yes that looks bad. One person who got their stone recently said he had it tested and confirmed it was a sapphire. I'm asking him what test he used though.
Post subject: Re: Do these inclusions make it synthetic?
Posted: Tue Jun 21, 2011 11:18 am
Site Admin
Joined: Sun Oct 16, 2005 12:22 pm Posts: 21602 Location: San Francisco
Tanzanite is classed by the GIA as a "Type 1" gem. This means most tanzanite is very clean internally. Typical minute inclusions may be very fine needles, tiny hairline feathers, very faint clouds and percussion marks.......not the field of "whatever" seen in this online eBay specimen.
That is not to say that clusters of crystals could never be seen in tanz, but it would be rather unlikely...even at $4/ct.
Important: Tanzanite is NOT made synthetically. If this is not tanzanite, it would be termed an imitation, not a synthetic.
Post subject: Re: Do these inclusions make it synthetic?
Posted: Tue Jun 21, 2011 9:05 pm
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One of the persons who bought a gem similar to the one shown said he has an expensive tester, and he determined it to be a natural sapphire and not tanzanite. I don't know what is causing the purple reflections although I've seen some pictures of sapphire that have purple reflections. In any event, I might test the one I bought from the seller (not the one shown above) at GIA and report back some time later.
Post subject: Re: Do these inclusions make it synthetic?
Posted: Wed Jun 22, 2011 11:28 am
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Joined: Sun Oct 16, 2005 12:22 pm Posts: 21602 Location: San Francisco
Those "expensive" testers are only as reliable as the person doing the testing.
That being said, both synthetic sapphire and natural sapphire will test the same. One needs to microscopically determine the nature of the inclusions to separate natural from synthetic.
Post subject: Re: Do these inclusions make it synthetic?
Posted: Thu Jun 23, 2011 12:48 am
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Joined: Sat Jul 11, 2009 10:29 am Posts: 928 Location: USA
BTW, What is a "Expensive Tester" out of curiosity?
I am betting it is one of the Presidium Multi-tester deals, and if so, they are about useless to anyone who is not quite proficient in Gemstones and also about useless without any other tools to go with it! And if it was a truly expensive tester like a spectrometer or something, they would no better then thinking they could buy either a Tanzanite nor natural sapphire at that price.
And, as Barbra pointed out above and below in my quote of her post, a synthetic and natural will test the same!
Barbra Voltaire wrote:
Those "expensive" testers are only as reliable as the person doing the testing.
That being said, both synthetic sapphire and natural sapphire will test the same. One needs to microscopically determine the nature of the inclusions to separate natural from synthetic.
Couldn't agree more Barbra! My gut and common sense tells me, that even at $4/ct that is most likely NOT a natural sapphire either! Be lucky if it is even a treated one, lol.
But, I do have to ask, why in the World do folks think one can buy something like this and it be the real deal!!???
Post subject: Re: Do these inclusions make it synthetic?
Posted: Thu Jun 23, 2011 6:16 am
Valued Contributor
Joined: Tue Oct 20, 2009 3:34 pm Posts: 381 Location: Sweden
Swishman wrote:
I am betting it is one of the Presidium Multi-tester deals, and if so, they are about useless to anyone who is not quite proficient in Gemstones and also about useless without any other tools to go with it!
I do not really agree with the first part - It´s not useless, I use mine almost on a daily basis and it works very fine, but I DO agree with the second part - You DO need other instruments to be certain. You cannot use it as the only instrument, maybe to get a hint of what the gem COULD be or what it could NOT be, then the Presidium works excellent!
Post subject: Re: Do these inclusions make it synthetic?
Posted: Fri Jun 24, 2011 1:08 am
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Joined: Sat Jul 11, 2009 10:29 am Posts: 928 Location: USA
The machine is good, but it is useless to someone that does NOT know how to properly ID a gemstone and only relies on it. In this situation the machine is a hunk of junk and useless. See, most have no clue about anything, buy this machine thinking it tells them what the stone is and that is how they use it, lol.
I never said the machine was useless over all, only useless under the conditions of what I stated. To someone with no other Gemological tools and/or to someone who has no proper education in Gemology (or at least on their own learning with lots of practice and ends up knowing how to properly ID a gemstone) or even to someone who has other tools but no proper learning nor training on how to use them and some basic Gemology, it is a totally 110% hunk of junk piece of equipment that causes more false IDs then anything else!
IMHO they shouldn't even be allowed to sell those things to the general public, should be those in the Industry only. It would cause a lot of headaches, confrontations, heart breaks, rip-offs, some scams, and so on, to disappear and go away if they just did so!
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