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Dear all we are back with our Newsletter ! It’s April , days are getting longer, the sun has come back to heat our bones, green grass is growing in the fields and little flowers too with their delicate colours ….. We feel regenerated enough as to be able to talk about a serious topic this month: Corundum ! First of all ….what is a “corundum” ? Let’s find it out in Wikipedia: “Corundum is a crystalline form of aluminium oxide (Al2O3) with traces of iron, titanium and chronium. It is a rock-forming mineral. It is one of the naturally trasparent materials, but can have different colours when impurities are present. Trasparent specimens are used as gems, called ruby if red. All other colours are called sapphire.” So this is it, this is what we have been buying and selling since a couple of years at least: corundums better known with the commercial name of “ flat rosecut sapphires”.  Many clients have been asking me about these sapphires. Are they real sapphires ? if they are reddish will they be called rubies or red sapphires ? are they natural ? are they dyed ? ….. I definitively wanted to make the matter clear to all, once and for all.  Speaking with importers and suppliers I tried to understand if my beloved sapphires would go through heating/filling/clearing processes before their commercial distribution. I have to admit this is a difficult topic. Most of the times you don’t get good answers to your questions. Indians suppliers guarantee for their being 100 % natural, cut and washed and nothing more. What I can say is we now try to avoid to buy lead-filled stones – I don’t like the synthetic effect they get – and all those stones that clearly bear the signs of some chemical treatment. After a while you get experienced enough as to recognize them at first sight. My opinion is we cannot be completely sure of what was done to them in the cutting place ….but what we can be very sure of is that their colours will bring beauty and pure satisfaction to our lifes.  |