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19.36-carat morganite Starbrite™ cut by John Dyer & Co.
Photo by Lydia Dyer. |
Discovered in Southern California in the early twentieth
century, morganite was named by world-famous gemologist George Kunz of Tiffany
& Co. after his client, J.P. Morgan, banking tycoon and art collector.
Known for its appealing pink hue, the gemstone is classified as a beryl — along
with aquamarine and emerald. Sometimes referred to as pink beryl, the stone is
gaining popularity for its pretty color.
A POPULAR CHOICE
Morganite’s rosy hue, which it gets from the element
manganese, is a fashionable choice, and “there just aren’t a lot of other
things that are bright, pink, attractive and affordable,” notes gemstone cutter
John Dyer of John Dyer & Co. in Edina, Minnesota. While pink sapphire is
considerably more costly and rose quartz is typically too opaque to be popular
in the U.S. market, morganite’s subtle pink shades offer a more neutral choice
that pairs well with other stones, even for those who wouldn’t normally think
pink.
“You can wear it with almost any color,” says Cynthia Renée
Zava of Cynthia Renée, Inc., a gemstone dealer and designer based in Carrboro,
North Carolina. “It looks icier with white metals like palladium, and softer
and sweeter with rose gold — both popular metals in jewelry right now,” Zava
adds. “It’s very wearable all year, all day.” Sheryl Jones, managing director
of Ozuro Fine Jewelry in New York City, cites its delicate tone as a big draw:
“It’s different than working with pink sapphire because it’s softer. It’s just
a soft, pretty pink that’s hard to replicate in other stones.”
Typically, larger-size morganite stones are more desirable
because they hold more color for greater impact. The overall saturation of
color is low in morganite. For the pleasant hue to be really visible and not
wash out, larger stones of at least 2 carats best showcase the vibrancy of the
pink color, Jones says. In the high-end market, Simon Watt of Mayer & Watt,
a gemstone dealer in Maysville, Kentucky, says he sells morganite in the
5-carat to 25-carat range, especially in designs like elongated drops for
earrings, a shape that suits beryl because it maximizes its color impact.
“It’s a beautiful gem because of its large size and clarity
— it’s often very clean and can have great brilliance,” Dyer notes. Zava adds,
“Even in large sizes, morganite gemstones don’t take a lot of visual space
because it’s a delicate color.” With that in mind, designers are using the
gem’s distinctive qualities in innovative creations. Almost every year, a
morganite piece wins an American Gem Trade Association (AGTA) Cutting Edge
Award because the stone lends itself to unique cuts.
Dyer, for example, has won the award several times for
morganite, as well as other gemstones, including in 2011, when he won Second
Place in the Combination Category for a 50.92-carat Starbrite™ cut morganite
that featured special grooving techniques on the pavilion. “Combined with the
clarity of morganite, the Starbrite cut really gave it some pop,” he explains.
At Ozuro, morganite fits seamlessly in a necklace with aquamarine and yellow
beryl because of its soft quality that looks pretty against the skin.
SUPPLIES SUFFICIENT
“There is a lot more morganite on the market now than I’ve
seen in 30 years,” says Watt. Deposits in Madagascar, Brazil and Mozambique
currently supply the majority of the gemstone. Although production in
Mozambique dried up after the closing of a large metal mine that also mined
morganite — falling prices for the metal material made the operation less
economically feasible — it produced large quantities before the closure,
yielding enough supply to sustain demand into the following years.
Still, rough prices have risen slightly because of demand in
emerging markets like China and India. Meanwhile, changing environmental
regulations for mining in Brazil — including such costly requirements as
environmental impact studies and setting aside funds for recovering the land —
have made it difficult for smaller operations to be profitable unless they’re
dealing with a high-priced gem or especially low production costs. “Only
serious operators who are well funded are able to play,” Dyer notes. While
Brazil was once a much larger supplier, the amount of morganite coming from the
country is still significant.
MOSTLY TREATED
But the bigger issue is not of supply but the lack of
disclosure about whether morganite stones in the marketplace are treated. The
most desirable shade is an intense pink, Watt says, but he notes that the
scarcity of that intense deeper pink shade makes it pricier than the gem’s more
readily available lighter peach hues. Deep pink stones can sell for up to $600
or $800 per carat. Treatment of the stone — which is permanent — can produce a
more desirable color, approximately 20 percent deeper, but there is no
laboratory test to determine whether a stone has been treated and there is no
labeling requirement to disclose that it has been treated.
Dyer estimates the “vast majority of morganite on the market
is treated,” mostly through irradiation followed by heat treatment to deepen
the pink color and add to the stone’s desirability — and price. However, Watt
suggests that “I think there are people selling it as natural and not
disclosing. There is a lot of ‘don’t ask, don’t tell.’ I think people are
scared of irradiation — it sounds bad.” Dyer notes it’s safest to presume
morganite has been treated; in fact, Watt guesses that about 90 percent of the
peachier morganite is, indeed, irradiated. He bases that suspicion on the fact
that “There is so much of that peachy material on the market these days — and
clean — in almost any size you want.”
While untreated stones do exist, they are rare. Jim Mann, of
Mt. Mann Jewelers in Bethel, Maine, has an inventory of untreated stones,
sourced from a crystal called the Rose of Maine, which was mined in 1989 at the
Bennett Mine in Buckfield, Maine. The crystal ranks as the largest morganite
crystal ever found in North America. Roughly the size of a large pumpkin, it
weighed about 50 pounds upon discovery, yielding stones that Mann says are
slightly lighter in color than most and are selling for about $100 a carat.
“In my inventory, I currently have one piece of untreated
morganite. There’s just not much available,” Watt says. Dyer says an untreated
stone may sell for about 20 percent more than a treated one, but the majority
of customers would rather pay less for the treated stone. “The fact that you’ve
got intense pink morganite and it is selling for $600 to $800 a carat and it’s
irradiated is obscene — but there’s no test for it,” Watt says. “If it was
beautiful material from Madagascar and it was slightly included, that would be
fine and that price would be justified. That’s the beauty of natural stones.”
Perhaps as a nod to its aristocratic nomenclature, this pink
beryl is both a collector’s gem for connoisseurs enticed by its soft shade, and
a wearable stone for jewelry mavens looking for an outside-the-box accessory.
If supply can meet growing international demand, it will find its way into more
jewelry designs and “be used in ways it’s never been used before,” Watt says.
Article from the Rapaport Magazine - May 2012. To subscribe click here.