Gemstones

G.L.O.G. purchase protection means that any inaccurate disclosures of treatments on the product page or in communication with us entitles you to a full refund plus a platform credit equal to your original purchase price.

We go to great lengths to make sure nothing deceptive appears on our platform, including gemological testing on all items on our platform that don't already have lab reports.

Purchase protection applies to inventory purchases as well as custom wholesale orders made on our client platform. Learn More.

In 99% of cases yes, with insurance included.

Read more about our shipping policy.

Yes, we offer 2 week no-questions-asked returns on gem materials or jewelry.

We also offer memo benefits to clients, so open a client account if you'd like to try material before purchasing.

We built a free tool on our client platform that allows you to browse jewelry styles of over 500 modern jewelry designers. The focus is fine jewelry, high jewelry, and art jewelry; fashion or "demi-fine" jewelry is coming soon.  You can join our platform right away if you're a jewelry creator or a student pursuing bench jewelry or jewelry design.  You can also join if you're a customer, so if you've made a purchase before please feel free to sign up!

We built another free tool on our client platform that allows you to tap wholesale markets for the material you need, at your desired price with no obligation. Depending on the material, you can specify your preferred market as well, from Sri Lanka and Tanzania, to the Tucson show and Lighting Ridge. You can join our platform right away if you're a jewelry creator or a student pursuing bench jewelry or jewelry design.  You can also join if you're a customer, so if you've made a purchase before please feel free to sign up!

Yes, with the exception of natural diamond alternates (lab-grown diamonds and moissanite). Discussion follows since this is a reason-of-being for gemologists:

We guard against material that is fundamentally deceptive: imitators (serpentine for jade, hessonite for spessartine, synthetic spinel for aquamarine, etc.), glass filled material, doublets or triplets, foil-backed, surface-coated, or dyed material, or synthetically grown material other than lab grown diamond and moissanite (both alternatives to natural diamond) which are clearly disclosed on the product page (Indeed: no colored stone synthetics are carried on our site).

Enhancements that are generally accepted by the industry, consumers, and appraisers (e.g. cultured pearls, minor oil in emeralds, HPHT treated natural diamond, heat treated tanzanite, black onyx, Zachary turquoise) are clearly disclosed on the product page. Often these treatments exist because little visually appealing or durable material would be available without their use, and this class of enhancements is not viewed as significantly altering the starting material. Of course, gemstones with no treatment at all exist for all species of gemstone, and for some species it is unusual to have any type of treatment (e.g. spinel, garnets). In a few cases, treatments are very hard or even impossible to detect: certain gemstone species may be subject to low temperature heat treatment, irradiation, or small element diffusion where standard gemological instruments and microscope analysis simply cannot detect the treatment (e.g. the common treatments for blue topaz, aquamarine, padparadscha sapphires, even low heat on corundum); such treatments are noted as probable on the product page. Rubies, sapphires, and emeralds have certain treatments that signal very low value and stones subject to this class of treatment won't be found on our site: glass fracture filling, surface diffusion, Be-diffusion, significant heat treater's flux as opposed to minor flux, significant oil in emeralds as opposed to minor oil. We do not carry type B jade (polymer injected) or type C jade (polymer injected and dyed). Natural, non-stabilized turquoise usually carries a large premium; we do carry properly stabilized turquoise (e.g. Zachary treated) from famous deposits, as properly stabilized turquoise is still valued on the market. Natural diamond treatments (irradiation, heat, HPHT treatment) can produce a range of colors or enhanced clarity; we accept natural treated diamonds, as the market does, and they are disclosed as such on our site. Today lab-grown diamonds and synthetic moissanite are both market-accepted (and can get quite pricey); we carry these as well, as they clearly are desired by consumers.

With G.L.O.G purchase protection you won't have to worry about purchasing something with inaccurate disclosures, a commonplace in gem markets.

This is truly the central problem of all online gem platforms (and for many it's also the central problem of buying in-person).

Gemstone color absolutely varies based on lighting: indoor lighting with weak or strong incandesent light, outdoor lighting with weak or strong fluorescent light, the reflected colors of the walls, ceiling, your clothes or the material the stone is resting on, the "reflected" darkness and shadows near the gemstone - we're not even talking differences in how screens and cameras render images - it's all incredibly hard to predict how a gem's color will appear in your particular environment. This isn't limited to online: we've visited ruby shops that use muted incandescent light throughout- surprise, surprise everything looks high quality red - or of course trade booths with strong fluorescent lights, yikes!

For our product photos we cycle through a variety of lighting: daylight equivalent 5500-6000 Kelvin, 3000-3500 Kelvin incandescent, and just natural sunlight in the studio (be it the equatorial light of Singapore or higher latitudes of the US). In some cases there is a surprising difference in how the gemstone looks between these 3 lighting setups, in which case we'll show the stone in all 3. The only editing we do is to remove the background for primary photos. Note, background removal can have cognitive effects: a ruby or imperial topaz photographed in 3500 incandescent with a whited-out background will probably look unnaturally colored against white, even though it's the stone's true colors in indoor light.  Make sure to look at all photos and videos of the product if in doubt.

For what it's worth, we believe any semi-automated photography setup (usually with heavy post production) is fundamentally not good for gemstones. Each gemstone really has unique looks which always requires some acquaintance-making to decide on the best approach for capturing the stone. We also think that, at the end of day, a manual tweezer inspection video is preferable to any turntable or 360 camera setup. (We inspect colored stones with tweezers at a casual distance when we buy in person after all.) You'll find a tweezer video for everything that's gemmy, provided it can be handled by gem tweezers. We also favor more candid gem photos, without heavy glamorization/post production.

Inclusions: While we use GIA clarity grades for diamonds, we use casual distance as the operating principle for clarity in colored stones, where Color is King^TM. This means we give product page disclosures for any inclusions that one would notice from a casual distance, but also for anything we find obvious under closer inspection which you may or may not notice from a casual distance. We'll also disclose any clarity characteristics that would be hidden by jewelry settings. In general we aren't going to carry anything with significant unwanted inclusions that ends up defining the stone.

In any event, we offer no-hassle two week returns (as well as memo options for our client accounts), so you don't have to risk your money if the stone turns out not being what you expect.

We place item limits for purchases by non clients. This is out of respect for anti-money laundering initiatives in our home jurisdictions, as well as fraud considerations since there are risks in our customer-friendly policies. If you wish to make a large purchases, please enroll as a client.
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You bet, one of our GIA GG gemologists will sign a full appraisal document including pictures, which you can then submit to insurance. Just reach out after you place your order.

Client accounts also receive complementary unofficial jewelry appraisals as well as discounted official appraisals (with testing and signed documents).

Note: We sell products at sub-retail prices and appraisals are at retail value. So yes, your appraisal value will be more than what you paid on our site.

Yes. Take a look at our client account section to get started.
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You may wish to open a client account where we can memo items to you before purchase or make a house call for large purchases.

Otherwise you can visit us at select trade shows throughout the year, or if you are in a city where we have a workshop or office (Singapore, Tucson, Austin) we can schedule a time for you to view what's on site. Get started with client accounts.

Sometimes the base price covers the entirety of the piece, and we make sure this is possible for all commissions by giving you options for different materials or changes to design. Reasons for price increase beyond base: larger or more exceptional gemstones, a greater quantity of gemstones, natural diamonds with VS1+ clarity, specialized work such as micro pavé, carvings, designer cuts, cameo/intaglios, enamel, or complex engravings. All options are detailed in your quote. Ultimately you'll get to choose how much you wish to spend to make your piece a reality.
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Casting has gained a somewhat negative connotation, and we mostly agree with that sentiment. We're not sure customers are getting what they actually want if the jewelry company's main role is to send a CAD file to a factory somewhere for quick & cheap casting, with possibility of mass production. That said, handcrafted pieces can sometimes benefit from cast design components, although we don't make jewelry that is fully cast.

You bet: We actively curate nearly all notable gem species. Most material have undergone some lapidary work but we also curate gemstone rough and specimens, e.g. raw diamond engagement rings.

We have offices in Singapore (Orchard) and the United States (Tucson, AZ and Austin, TX). You can also find us at most of the major annual gem and jewelry trade shows (Hong Kong, Tucson, Munich, JCK). We'll also visit you for large purchases if you're part of our client platform.