Do Gemstones Melt? “Umm, yes… the stone just melted.”
That isn’t exactly the words you want to hear when you are working on a project.
So, let’s back up.
We were doing a test project with some stones that were from Esty.
They were given to us just to play around with. The person had them along with a certification document that said they were sapphires.
We were creating a proof of concept with these stones—an unusual design that one doesn’t see every day.
And things were going well, until the first one chipped.
“Weird” we thought. Sapphires don’t typically chip. But none the less, we moved forward.
At one point, we accidently dropped another one onto the tile floor and it chipped — “Really weird”.
But then when we were touching up one of the prongs with the torch and a stone started melting in front of our eyes, that is when we realized we had a much larger issue on our hands.
We jumped out of our chairs and realized that even though we had a document saying that they were sapphires, there was no way they were sapphires.
Sapphires will still remain intact even when the metal around them starts to melt, and our metal wasn’t even affected, yet this “sapphire” was already melted.
When it was tested, the “sapphire” tested off the charts, which means it was probably made of glass or maybe had some plastic in it. Let’s just say it is hard to tell at that point.
Why are we telling you this?
- Because it is a fun story for you (but maybe not for us having to deal with it at the time)
- You can’t always trust what you buy from 3rd party vendors
(In case you are wondering, all our stones that we purchase are tracked and analyzed to make sure they are ethically sourced and they are what they say they are.
We do this for sustainability reasons as well as to make sure we are delivering high quality products to you.
Our stones are actually one step better because we also buy graded gemstones – which means they have been sorted the same way eggs are sorted by size—except the criteria for gemstones are for color and quality.))
So, if you want to see gemstones melt, get yourself some fake stones, a nice little fire, a bottle of beer and enjoy the show!
Or, if you are looking for a piece of jewelry, contact us here!