GEM CUTS

Gem cutting is a relatively modern art, and today it is highly scientific and technical. What made early jewelry, such as King Tut's, spectacular was the gold. Thus, the original jewelers were goldsmiths and not gem cutters, and the goldsmith's art was paramount to the making of jewelry.

CABOCHON CUT

The cabochon cut is the oldest known, dating back to the crude found in the earliest archaeological sites. In fact, for centuries before Christ in the Middle East and Asia and for centuries afterwards in Europe, "cut" gems were merely modifications or refinements of beads.

The roughly shaped beads were first ground and smoothly polished round and oval-shaped domes. They then were cut in half, creating the cabochon: a flat-bottomed round or oval cut. The name comes from an old French word meaning head or knob. Until the seventeenth century, the cabochon was used for almost all gems. Modern cabochons, however, are cut and ground or polished to show certain gems off to their best advantage.

Some types of gems are always cut in cabochons. For that reason, you want to consider the gem as well as the cut, and you know what to look for.

Opaque and translucent gems are most often cut in cabochons. In translucent gems the type of inclusions often dictates the height cut. It may be a high dome or one of medium or low height. Regardless of height, the top of all cabochons should be symmetrically. curved. One side should not be higher than the other, and there should be no flat spots. The surface should be smoothly polished, whit any pits that indicate improper or careless polishing and that it from the value of the stone.