GEMS
they're truly outrageous, and i just realized i can pin posts now
Hello! If you're here because I made an offhand remark in 2020 about getting a fistful of rubies for $20, I was simplifying very slightly. The lot of rubies that I got are now going for about ~$28, and you can find them here on gemsngems.com.
Do your own due diligence! I've had good experiences with them, I was able to corroborate those experiences with some other reviews online, but your mileage may vary.
FAQ
Q. What's the deal with this company?
A. Best as I can determine, gemsngems is a wholesaler operating out of Bangkok. They supply mass-produced lab-grown gemstones. Because they're operating out of Bangkok, note that international shipping times are probably going to be your enemy. I had to wait for my zircons for like six weeks.
Q. Hey, some of these ruby entries are looking more like $400 for one instead of $20 for ten. What gives?
A. The corundum this supplier has comes from three processes: flame fusion, hydrothermal synthesis, and Czochralski pulling. Flame fusion is cheap and easy, you cram some powdered aluminum oxide and some impurities into a plasma torch and bam, you've got rubies, or sapphires, or spinels, or padparadscha, or whatever. The resulting stones are good enough for me, which is why I bought them.
The hydrothermal process uses a big-ass autoclave to simulate the natural process by which these crystals formed. A saturated solution is put in and allowed to become supersaturated by slowly cooling it. Seed crystals are added to entice things to grow, and you've got pretty damn good stones. Notably, this can be used for things like beryl. It's more time and energy intensive, and that jacks up the price, but the result is basically indistinguishable from natural gemstone.
Czochralski pulling takes a seed crystal and puts it on the end of a puller rod that's dipped into a crucible of molten whatever. The rod is very slowly and precisely pulled upward, resulting in a monocrystalline "ingot" of that whatever. If you're trying to build a laser, don't, but that's kind of the only reason you'd need a gemstone with this kind of purity and structure.
Long story short, if you only need the rocks to look at like a dragon, you're fine with the cheapest option.
Q. Hey, why is there alexandrite listed in the corundum section?
That's simulated alexandrite. It's a corundum that's been doped with a colorant that changes hue from pink to green based on what angle you view it from. You can actually get true beryl alexandrite from this site, but since it's a beryl stone, a great big hunk of it's gonna be pricey, because of the above lecture.
Q. Do you actually have those rubies?
You bet your ass.
