GRADING REPORT ece160
- Identification: Natural Unheated Emerald
- Carat: 1.60
- Shape: Emerald
- Measures: 7.86x6.19x4.68 (millimeter)
- Color Grade: Excellent+
- Tone: Medium Dark 60
- Color Zoning: None
- Clarity: Lightly/Moderately Included (see comment)
- Cutting Grade: Very Good+
- > Brilliancy: 80%
- > Depth: 75%
- Origin: Sandawana
Treatment: Minor Oil Only
Certificate No: DSEF SM081088
Overall Grade: Excellent+
Comment: Newly permitted into our stock: Oiled emeralds. (Please read here if you want to know why.)
All Sandawana emeralds over one carat are considered a rarity. Our inventory is easily the largest in the trade but let this not deceive you: no new material is coming, the mines have been emptied long ago, their consistent quality is legend, perhaps the best emeralds found in history. This 1.60 carat is well cut, shows off with a 8x6mm face-up but no window, radiates open bluish green, with no yellow, no brown, is never pale, and never blacks-out, ever. The minor-oil-only in the DSEF report means you could wash the oil off in warm soup-water, though we don't do this out of obvious reasons. Note the high maximum brilliancy, a rarity in a more color-based variety. The sometimes-visible inclusion is also a 'normal' feature in this gem-class. The one inclusion of silvery texture is visible to the unaided eye but only from a certain angle, thus I graded the gem 'lightly/moderately included', on an indecisive day. In any case, this is an emerald of fine quality and legendary pedigree. BTW: How or why does an origin gain legendary status? For Sandawana emeralds, it is primarily the high chromium content, for blue sapphires it is a more complicated combination of color agents and crystal formation, in ruby we love to see chromium as well, only there it, surprisingly, produces red etc.. Average sizes, clarity, total output, and not least regional marketing and political circumstances determine if a mining area can gain and hold global fame before it is empty. Sandawana became famous over night with a quality hitherto unseen but ran dry quickly. Not cheap but super color, extra brilliancy, almost un-oiled, pretty no-end, and the rarest emerald-types on earth. If you are looking for something extraordinary, value retaining and ever green, search no more. Prices will go no-where but up, fast. Let us design you an appropriate bespoke jewel to your own taste and character, that is luxury.
Guebelin reported that the biggest Sandawana emerald to ever have been cut in the late 50ies (at the mines highest production) was 1.56 carat, well before our inventory went public and the mines ran empty.
Read about Sandawana Emeralds.
Here is a bit more about Emerald grading by the GIA.
Read here about emeralds on photo.
