I was inspired by @hhelton’s sunstone post. @JimGrahlDesign and I designed a piece together for my wife Lisa (a surprise) - 5 years ago maybe?
I guess it’s a cocktail ring – the center stone is 11ct pure red oregon sunstone. Some schiller. The stone gives off a very cool glow. It’s the finest oregon sunstone I’ve ever owned or had cut, so I just had to set it.
The little flowers are pink sapphires and tsavorite garnets for the leaves.
Jim did a little video of the fabrication process. Sorry for the length!
Oh and 100% shameless plug for @GSGold, who supplied the 90/10 Irid casting grain. I was buying it from them before I was involved with Ganoksin, and it turns out they are one of our advertisers.
Wow, I am in awe of the Sunstone and the workmanship on that ring.
Who did the cutting of the Sunstone?
Love the before and after of the stone and the video of the work progress.
Thanks for sharing this, do you have any more? lol
Thank YOU! That stone was cut from the rough by Daniel Stair (he has cut hundreds of stones from me). The rough was mined by Derek Lusk, from whom I bought all the largest and best pieces for a few years in a row. Not sure he still mining…
Here is a pendant we did for my mother-in-law… same batch of rough, the stone was a gift from me to her. I think @JimGrahlDesign has the pictures of the fabrication for this one too. Maybe he can post them.
Setting Feldspar is a pain in the butt… Jim fabbed a system of supports to suspend it.
Nice, thanks for the quick response.
My wife is becoming a self taught silver smith and she will love the video too.
Have you ever run across actual blue sunstone?
I bet your Sunstones have really increased in Value the past few years.
It’s akin to setting an emerald - you just need a lot of experience to avoid breaking anything Yes, my mother-in-law loved the pendant. Designed to be an everyday piece, very simple but elegant.
I’m not sure what the value is these days… there is a fair amount of oregon sunstone, and public awareness remains pretty low.
My guess it that the 11ct precision-cut stone we put in that ring, given the color being as close to a pure red as sunstone gets (which is orangy-red at best), is probably worth $5,000-ish net, wholesale (so $500/carat). That is a complete and total guess though…
I think @gemwise just wrote a chapter on Oregon Sunstone in his 2nd edition of Secrets of the Gem Trade… so he is probably more current than I.
@seth-ganoksin-admin Thank you so much for the shameless plug, the G&S Team really appreciates it! The cocktail ring is absolutely stunning, beautiful work. The video is great, showing the transformation of raw material, casting grain to boot into something that is fabricated, the steps of the involved process, its really wonderful.
Yes, my mother-in-law loved the pendant. Designed to be an everyday piece, very simple but elegant.