Sell With a Story: Zircon

Zircon combines a nearly adamantine luster with exceptional brilliance and a wide array of colors — striking blues, yellow, green, orange, brown, red, black and colorless.

Because of Zircon’s vibrant optical properties and a wide array of pleasing colors, it has become a darling for gem collectors. The stone is mined in Cambodia, Madagascar, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Thailand, Tanzania, China, and Australia. In the middle ages, zircon was claimed to aid sleep, bring prosperity, and promote honor and wisdom in its owner.

The name Zircon derives from the Persian word zargun, meaning gold-hued. It hasn’t always been so highly regarded. It was widely used in the 1950s and sixties as an inexpensive diamond substitute and included in mass-produced jewelry like mothers’ rings and birthstone jewelry as a pleasing substitute to aquamarine. Its popularity was eclipsed by the advent of better, less expensive diamond substitutes and the introduction of treated blue topaz. Rough Cambodian Zircon

As is the case of some other gemstones, zircon was saddled with a name that is more clinical than romantic. Different names have been applied to the stone, often about the color, such as hyacinth and jacinth. Starlight was a turn-of-the- century attempt by gemstone legend and Tiffany & Co. stone buyer George Fredrick Kunz to romanticize the stone’s icky name. While Tiffany had great success in other efforts, las with Tanzanite (zoisite), Starlight never caught on.

Given the renaissance of gemstone popularity today, even its less- than-stellar name cannot hold back a gemstone as luscious as zircon. Its affordability, coupled with an incredible range of colors, has helped it become one of the better selling stones in today’s market. Even large gemstones – 10 plus carats – are available (though they may be in short supply). As with most multi-colored gemstone families, typically the red, green, and blue material will command a premium price over the more- affordable brown, orange, and yellow shades.

How to Care For Your Gemstones

Once mounted in jewelry, the December birthstone should be stored carefully. Although this ancient gem is hard, facets can abrade if they come in contact with other gemstone jewelry. We have no definitive diagnostics to determine if a zircon has been treated. But the industry assumes that except for green and brown zircons, most colors have received heat enhancement. For the most part, these treatments are stable. But warn your customer who might visit a nail salon while wearing their zircon jewelry that intense UV lamps can bleach out the color. You can clean zircon jewelry with mild dish soap and use a soft brush to scrub the stone. Your AGTA jeweler can tell you how to best care for your precious gemstones. AGTA Spectrum Awards™ Winners

1st Place winner in the Bridal Wear category at the 2017 AGTA Spectrum Awards™. 18K white gold and rhodium “Double the Love” ring featuring a 12.62 ct. heart-shaped blue Zircon accented with a .75 ct. heart-shaped Diamond and Diamond pave (1.53 ctw.) from Ricardo Basta, E. Eichberg, Inc.

Manufacturing Honors winner in the Classical category at the 2017 AGTA Spectrum Awards™. 18K yellow and rhodium “Blue Lagoon” ring featuring a 13.99 ct. cushion-cut blue Zircon accented with Diamond melee (1.32 ctw.) from Ricardo Basta, E. Eichberg, Inc.

3rd Place in All Other Faceted category at the 2016 Summer AGTA Spectrum Awards™. 24.12 ct. cushion-cut blue Zircon from Ambassador Gems.

Honorable Mention winner in the Pairs & Suites category at the 2017 AGTA Spectrum Awards™. Suite of 36 specialty-cut Zircons (140.27 ctw.) from Phillip Youngman.

Searching for more? Find more information about Blue Zircon here.

Sell With A Story: Blue Zircon December’s birthstone combines a gorgeous green blue color with a fiery brilliance akin to diamond. In fact for centuries, people confused colorless zircon with diamond. Today, unfortunately, many consumers think zircon is the same as lab-grown cubic zirconia. This error keeps them from enjoying zircon’s sparkling beauty. We offer hand-selected Black Box Gemstones® zircon and calibrated zircon in the shapes, sizes and shades you need to celebrate December birthdays and for any customer drawn to this teal hued beauty.

Aging gracefully

How long has zircon been around? For jewelry purposes, we can date it back to the Middle Ages and earlier. But zircon’s physical history stretches back beyond imagination, quite literally, billions of years. We know because in February 2014, an electric blue grain of zircon, no larger than a grain of sand, was found in the Jack Hills of Western Australia. Careful testing revealed that this tiny zircon dated back 4.4 billion years, making it the oldest mineral on the planet.

Way back when

Zircon crystallized from the boiling magma that characterized earth’s Hadean Eon or “hell time”, when our planet was only 165 million years old. In the midst of heat and chaos, some zircon crystals had the good fortune to capture a tiny few atoms of uranium-238, a radioactive element.

Enter U-238 Under normal circumstances, we estimate the age of historically significant objects with carbon dating. Alas, it can only measure 70,000 years into the past. With uranium-238, we enter a vast ancient realm. We know that half of uranium-238 atoms decay into lead after 4.47 billion years. To date the Australian grain of zircon, scientists measured the number of lead atoms versus the uranium-238 atoms. If they are equal, we can set the age at 4.47 billion years. It there are very slightly more uranium atoms than lead in zircon, we can date it to 4.4 billion years. Talk about aging beautifully.

A slight digression: Zircon and diamond

Colorless zircon looks more like diamond than any other natural gemstone. And zircon is denser/heavier than diamond meaning a one-carat zircon is smaller than a one-carat diamond. Zircon’s impressive dispersion of .039 is very close to diamond’s dispersion of .044. Now that we’ve cleared that up, let’s get back to blue zircon!

Top Shade At its purest, zircon is colorless. But with impurities other colors emerge: a yellowish brown, orange, red, and very rarely in green and blue. Since blue remains the most popular color, more had to be created. As often happens with gemstones, heating proved to be the solution. It transformed brown zircon into blue zircon. However, not just any brown zircon will do. South East Asia is rich with the right balance of impurities to yield blue zircon.

Does it make the cut?

Zircon has high birefringence so cutters must orient the table to the optic axis. If not, zircon’s natural facet image doubling will make its interior appear “fuzzy.” Round zircon is often given a “zircon cut,” a brilliant cut with an extra row of facets on the edge for greater brilliance.

Stone of Virtue

Zircon is endowed with some incredible powers of self- improvement. Its abilities are so good, it has been called a “stone of virtue” and so it seems to be.

Zircon can —

Reestablish or realign our ethics and morals with universal truths. Enhance innocence, purity, and constancy. Promote unions of the mind, body, spirit, or emotion. Attract love. Increase stamina and perseverance. Secures safe passage and friendly welcome for travelers. Heal injuries and sooth pain.

December birthdays can’t keep all this goodness to themselves. Every customer deserves these gifts!