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SCIENTISTS ARE NOW IMITATING GEMS SUCCESSFULLY. The Situation In Europe Where False Stones Are So Good as To Be Mis taken by Experts Is Growing Ser ious and Dealers Are Insisting on Legal Steps—Any Stone Can Now Be Counterfeited. The deep flash of a blood-red ruby flares behind the plate glass of the jeweler’s window. Fire burns in every facet. The lurid glow fascinates you. What is the figure? The amount depends entirely upon the honesty of the dealer. If he knows ‘you’ and you know him, he will be “frank ‘and tell you whether you are obuying’ a real, nature-made gem, the ‘product of a untold centuries, the value of which is hundreds of pounds, or one of laboratory manufacture, which was made in an hour and which is valued at about two shillings a carat. You are at his mercy. Therefore, if you are a buyer of precious stones, make a friend of your jeweler and assure yourself of his honesty. For this, is the hour of the unscrupulous dealer in man-made gems. The sapphire and the ruby of hu man manufacture are everywhere. They are being “created” in the lab oratures of the Paris chemists at the rate of about seven million carats a year. So nearly do they resemble the gems which nature requires centuries to produce that the expert alone can distinguish the real stone from that of laboratory engin. The average jeweler who has himself had little ex perience in handling these gems can not tell the difference. He must take the expert's word that the stones he buys are genuine. The trouble grows serious, especial ly in Europe. The buyer of a synthe tic ruby or sapphire may go through life believing that he posses on a stone formed in the mighty workshop of nature, unless he happens to re ceive the opinion of an expert. In Germany and France, selling manu factured sapphires and rubies as gen uine is so general that the jeweler's association of Paris and Berlin have asked their respective countries for stringent laws compelling the manu facturers to label their goods, and as there are more than five thousand cut ters employed in turning out millions of carats of these scientifically made tones annually, there is a consider able output to be labelled. There is no stone that cannot be imitated. By hardening glass to ex traordinary strength, by studying out coloring schemes and by chemistry it is possible to imitate every stone al most perfectly. Of course, an exam ination of the glass product by a jew eler would show the difference, but there are few microscopes at the so cial gatherings where items are worn, it is a costly business in a way. Sometimes as much as $5,000 is ex pended in experiments before the right coloring is obtained for some parcetine form of jewel which has come a fad. However, once the col oring is found the manufacture of the stones becomes cheaper and cheaper as the output grow. Sometimes glass jewels are turned out at a cost of less than sixpence a crrat. _The instant a real gem of any par ticular charm appears in the market the chemists of all the artificial jewel makers begin to study it. And before the real jewel has approached the zenith of its popularity the artificial stone has been brought forth and is telling like the proverbial wildfire— at about one-fiftieth of the price of the real product, . But it is not in the really artificial stones that the jewelers see trouble. They know they can detect these Where they cannot detect the synthe tic gems. And in these synthetic gems lurk the danger. It would be possible, some jewelers say, to flood the market with scientifically made rubies and sapphires. The cause of it all began about ten ce ago in a crystal of purified alum, i from this material the synthetic tones are made. The inventor wan M. Verneuil, of Paris, who followed the work of chemists whose combined ports had extended over centuries. All of the experiments had been on the principle that since nature's gema were produced by heat the man-made stone could be produced in the same way. Crystals had been formed in this manner, but the process of col oring had formed the stumbling block. Verneuil solved the question by mix ing oxides with the purified alum. After this the alum and oxides were laced in an oxyhydrogen furnace so revised that the gem-making material would drop through an intense flame. Thus a base was formed of the half nelted powder as it fell before the range of the flame and piled steadily tp. Higher and higher it went until the top was at the exact point of the same. There it remained, and the jpebeing heat slowly caused it to run into crystals. Other powder was hopping from above. This, too, was formed into crystals, and M. Verneuil, Mer hundreds of experiments, open ed his furnace to bring forth the first pies or rough bit of manufactured wet. This was sent to the cutters, and when their work was done it was an nounced to the world that the manu factured ruby was a reality. Work was then began on the manufacture d sapphires. However, the color in this stone was more difficult, and t was two years before the work was completed. M. Verneuil is now endeavoring to olve the coloring schemes of other stones in order to manufacture them so, but so far the sapphire, which is made in every color of the real items, and the ruby, are the only tones that can be manufactured by the synthetic method. Long Lived Lions, Lions are comparatively long lived, retances having been been resorted where they reached the age of seventy years.
Newspaper Details
New Westminster News
New Westminster, British Columbia, CA
Thu, Feb 06, 1913
Page 6
Full Page
Clipped by
Gerard M.
FR 10 Jun 2026
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