Martian Trinity
By Jeff R. Graham

Above is the rough Tourmaline, before any cutting... Notice the different axis colors.
(the slight green is from the rind of the stone)

Left is the finished stone and to the right is a side view,
Notice the girdle line curves (more then the picture shows really, because of the angle the picture was taken at), and the overall size of the finished stone... it is quite large, just slightly smaller than the size of a half dollar coin.

Item: N/A
Material: Tourmaline
Type: Pink/Peach/Orange
Locality: Nigeria, Africa
Hardness: 7 good for almost any jewelry application
Design: Martian Trinity (designed by Jeff R. Graham - Not Released)
Cut By: Jeff R. Graham
Dimensions: 27.7mm x 22mm x 15mm deep
Clarity: IF
Weight: 43.76 carats
Price: N/A
Note: The rough weighed 110.0 carats... So the yield was 39.76% for the stone. The rough was moderately (not great) well shaped, as you can see from the pictures of the rough. Notice the different colors on the axis's.

I knew that cutting a brilliant pavilion was going to cost me at least a few carats in the finished yield of the gemstone. But I felt that with a stone of this quality it was worth the sacrifice of the the rough to get a truly outstanding, brilliant stone. I think that in a bellied cut the yield would have been up around 50% plus... Of course, it would not be anywhere near as brilliant as it is.

No, your eyes are not playing tricks on you, both of the long ends of this stone (design) do in fact slope down, and the girdle line is even (it meets all the way around), but of course it is not a level girdle in the traditional sense. This presented some very challenging mechanical problems both in designing the cut and cutting the actual stone. It is pretty difficult to get a checker top and a curved girdle to meet (trust me)... To my knowledge this has never been done before, at least that I have ever seen...

The color on the "c" axis of this rough was a nice apricot/pink/red color, and the a/b axis was peach/orange. I designed the cut to mix both colors... and the two axis colors give the finished stone a very unusual, striking appearance. The main body color(s) for the finished stone are peach to red/pink. The highlight colors vary depending on the light and the angle that you are viewing the stone from.

The colors coming out of the finished stone run the whole spectrum from, red/purple/orange/pink/yellow/magenta... This phenomenon, is actually something I was hoping to create... by making the girdle slope down on the ends I was able to allow light to enter the stone from the peach/orange axis as well as from the crown. This not only brightens up the entire stone, but adds a lot of extra colors and dispersion that otherwise would not be there. As you can see in the pictures the whole stone lights up from edge to edge. This stone needs to be seen in person to really get the full impact...

For those of you that are wondering, or planning to ask, yes this design will be available in the next book (not an addition) that I am currently working on.

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E-mail to inquire or order: jeff @ faceters.com or jeff @ cabbers.com

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