My wife and son have been members of a local gem and mineral club for the past several years. They learned how to make cabochons and my wife has taken classes on silver smithing. Unfortunately with my work I am never in town on a regular schedule to take these classes. This past Christmas I bought her a cabbing machine so she can make the the cabochons she uses in her jewelry at home. I recently won a large lot of turquoise and other minerals from an auction. Here is a picture at my first attempt at a cabochon. It is a piece of Carico Lake, and is a little over 100 carats. About 1 1/4" in diameter. It was a broken off piece that I did not think would turn out that great, but I am happy with it.
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Nice job, that is a lot of carats.
Thanks, I chose this piece because it looked so bad before starting. I figured it wouldn’t be a loss if I screwed it up.
I still have a long way to go to catch up with my wife. Here are a couple of high dome cabs she just did, one light blue one medium blue.
Any idea of a value on my cab?
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Wow, great job! I’m taking a jewelry making clas, loving it, but would love to be able to make cabs to use in my settings! Thanks for sharing!
Lovely pieces! Both you and your wife must be quite proud!
I see Kingman stones like this being sold around $1.50 a carat, not much weight there.
Oh, I meant the cab I made. The two my wife did are about 12 carats each, natural, hard, unbacked material. Not much character to them though.
Pictures are always difficult, but it doesn’t look to be a piece of Carico Lake. We get rock like this from a dealer in Colorado, ours is Turquoise Mountain. I tried to find a piece but couldn’t. The material I am talking about can be between .75 - $1.50 a carat. Carico Lake is much more.
Turquoise Mountain
Broken Arrow Variscite
Carico Lake
Turquoise Mountain
Carico Lake Turquoise
Pilot Mountain Turquoise
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Yes, from the pictures you posted it looks more like Broken Arrow variscite or maybe Pilot Mountain. I was going by what some was marked, which may well be incorrect. I am getting a reflectometer, which hopefully will let me differentiate between turquoise and variscite.
Oh, and as always, thank you for your knowledge