star sapphire rough

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northern, NSW
Excuse the crappy photos but im Just wondering if these have potential to be star sapphires ? They have one corner of what appears to be a hexagonal pattern in them if that makes sense none of my other stones have that
1445066737_20151017_181843-1.jpg
1445066756_20151017_181919-1.jpg
 
I'm interested to know too. I know that corundum can be found in 'barrel' form which is possibky the one on the right. You might not be able to tell its a start sapphire until its cut..I'm guessing though
 
Cant tell from the photo but the one on the left is a piece of a much larger one same as on the right , one on the right appears "complete"
 
One on the left i woild say is bomb , really metallic looking lines in it though almost tigers eye looking but not. The bigger one is dark but not bomb , light passes through it
 
Is much more pronounced in real light silver , so im thinking it might be worth having a crack at cabbing after i find someone to teach me
 
I've seen some that my brother found once and they had that sheen about them,... others would know much more than I 5ff. :D
Good luck with it all. :D
 
To be honest they don't look like stars to me 5ft, though it's hard to pick stars from a photo, you need to move them around in sunlight and they generally have a certain plastic type sheen to them. It's the rutile needles in sapphs which cause a star to appear.

True star sapphs do not have a star pattern imprinted in them, rather it is an optical illusion that moves over the stone depening on the light source and orientation of the stone. The one one the left side of yours looks like a potential candidate. Both could be or may not be though, as said very hard to tell from a photo.

Copper sapphs though can a lot of the time show a star when cabbed.

Sapphire crystal structure is hexagonal, though that means little regarding star sapphs.
 
Heatho said:
To be honest they don't look like stars to me 5ft, though it's hard to pick stars from a photo, you need to move them around in sunlight and they generally have a certain plastic type sheen to them. It's the rutile needles in sapphs which cause a star to appear.

True star sapphs do not have a star pattern imprinted in them, rather it is an optical illusion that moves over the stone depening on the light source and orientation of the stone. The one one the left side of yours looks like a potential candidate. Both could be or may not be though, as said very hard to tell from a photo.

Copper sapphs though can a lot of the time show a star when cabbed.

Sapphire crystal structure is hexagonal, though that means little regarding star sapphs.
Is the rutile visible as small black dots by inspection of the surface? By plastic sheen do you mean 'waxy' kinda too?
 
Thanks heatho

Ok so i found some that look similar on google images , hard to explain the patterns not knowing the correct terms so heres a similar pattern to whats on the left one
1445111843_images.jpg


Guess that means it wont make a star when cabbed ?

And this is similar to the second stone although all the points meet at the edge of my stone not top centre like this one
1445111943_images-1.jpg
 
Me personally I'd send them off to Thailand to be cabbed anyway, they only cost about $1 per carat to be done. You never know what might come back, that Copper coloured google pic one looks great to me. I just write cabochon/stars on the bag I send my bombs in.

Here's one I got back a while ago. Was one of those coppery ones.

1445119835_20150507_140447.jpg
 
A friend sent some stars and cats eyes off to Lamberts a while ago and they cabbed them in the wrong axis to show the star/cats eye. It might pay to be specific about how you want them cut.
 
mfdes said:
A friend sent some stars and cats eyes off to Lamberts a while ago and they cabbed them in the wrong axis to show the star/cats eye. It might pay to be specific about how you want them cut.

I thought about that before sending mine and thought it was probably best to write stars/cabs on the bag they were in, thought it may at least promt them to look for stars.
 

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