Diamond News
How Does it Feel to Discover a New Kind of Natural Gem?
Israeli Diamond Institute
Sourcing gems (Illustration image by De Beers)
Two years ago, veteran gem explorer Yianni Melas pulled off a stunner, and managed to do something most in his profession can only dream about: he discovered a new gem. According to JCK, who interviewed Melas for a “behind the scenes” piece, the explorer was working at an undisclosed African location when he went to a friend’s hut and saw an interesting stone on a shelf.
According to Melas, he immediately got “the feeling” that this was something entirely different. He dug in the area, and discovered more stones of the same type. Nobody could pinpoint the stone, not even gem experts in a noted gem lab, who finally claimed it was a chrysoprase – a green variety of the known gem Chalcedony. But Melas stood his ground, and sent the stone to the Gemological Institute of America (GIA).
After three months of silence, Melas got his dream phone call: the stone he found was a brand new, never seen before, type of chalcedony. According to the GIA, the “bluish-green chalcedony” was “a new and welcome addition to the gem trade.” Melas got to name it, which he promptly did. He called it “aquaprase”: aqua for the blue sea, which the stone evokes; and prase for the green.
According to Melas, the material costs between 85 cents per carat to $20 per carat for the highest grades. Melas says he expects his partner-manufacturer to exhibit the gem in Las Vegas in June.
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