Welcome - Tom Chatham

Jewelry Discussion
1

Name: Tom Chatham

G’day Tom, and you are very welcome to the forum. Your name is
pretty famous too.

A good while ago I worked as a technician at Victoria University
of Wellington, NZ and took a gemmology course (as it was free to
staff!) Our tutor was a lecturer in geochemistry, and did quite a
good job on us. But one of his research topics was to make
emeralds by the liquid “bomb” method. He did make a couple of
emeralds, doping the contents of the bomb with vanadium. I seem
to remember that they were a particularly brilliant green, and
quite large. He faceted one amd set it in a ring for his wife -
I think the other one cracked during the faceting, and remember
him remarking that they were very brittle. Has this brittleness
been overcome yet? I do know the natural emeralds are pretty
brittle (Don’t mention it to Ed Ward in this group - it will
start up sad memories!!) And do you make vanadium emeralds? and
are they much different from the others? Good to hear from you,
Cheers,
/
/ / John Burgess,
/ /
/ //\ @John_Burgess2
/ / \
/ ()
(______)

2

Hi Tom,

Welcome to Orchid from a transplanted Oaklander! (I’m in DC
now.)

My fellow gem people may not let me play in any of their
raindeer games for saying this, but I find nothing wrong with
what you do. You make a high quality product, and you disclose
exactly what it is to the consumer. Not a dang thing wrong with
that.

Best regards,

Tom LaRussa

p.s. You have a cool first name too.

3

Greetings:

Howq do you grow crystals? What do you need to do so? Are
there some good book that tell you? What kind can you grow?

Regards,

Joe Bokor
@Joe_Bokor

4

Tom,

Welcome to Orchid!! Its great to have you here. Its this kind
of diversity and expertise that makes this forum great. We sell
lots of chatham syn stones, retail and in custom work. Keep up
the good work

Ray.

5

Tom,

Welcome to Orchid. You’re not a bad guy at all! There is no
deception in regards to what you supply. I hope you enjoy
Orchid as much as the rest of us do, and look forward to your
input.

Regards,

Sharon Ziemek
GoldStones, Inc.

6

Hi Tom, Great to have you online. I know you may not remember
me but we meet in 1983 in Paris, TX. You came to PJC and talked
to the members of the gemology classes. Well I past that class
and went on to take the jewelry class and have been doing this
trade for 14years now and really enjoy it. I also wear one of
your stones around my neck. I am also getting ready to buy my
first store and will definetly carry setups with chatham stones
in it. Good Luck and will be doing business with you. Nick
Hilton