GRADING REPORT APA140
- Identification: Natural Unheated & Untreated Apatite
- Carat: 1.40
- Shape: Oval
- Measures: 7.83x6.06x4.30 (millimeter)
- Color Grade: Excellent+
- Tone: Medium Dark 60
- Clarity: Lightly Included
- Cutting Grade: Good
- Brilliancy: 75%
- Depth: 71%
- Origin: Sri Lanka
Treatment: None (see comment)
Certificate No: IGI 320866251
Overall Grade: Very Good
Comment: Frankly, with this gem, we are taking an unusual risk. Neon-blue in apatite is usually an indicator for heat-treatment, resulting in as-good-or-better-than paraiba-colors (with the usual temptations for fraud). However, we are taking this gem into our inventory because the 2ndary green color (which the camera doesn't catch but IGI did, and the eye does too) should have been burned away. Also, it came in the parcel from Sri Lanka as TRAP124, a grass-green definitely unheated apatite. IGI could not find signs of treatment but that, too, is inconclusive. Meanwhile, gem-labs will widen their ability to test for treatment in other varieties, but until then we must offer this gem with a question-mark attached and NO premium added but discount applied. No visible inclusions, no window (despite images suggestion one), and perhaps no-heat or low-heat-only. Its fantastic color leaves no questions of why we chose the gem to join us. Imagine a tint of green into all images. Perhaps a new type of neon greenish blue apatite from Sri Lanka has been found and will enlarge the options for neon-type gems without nasty treatments. Let's keep on digging (ha!) and hope the gem-labs will meet the demand for new testing methods and more precise results.
