Back in the mid 80s, I was a co-owner of a small emerald mine in Colombia. The stones were plentiful, but the quality was mediocre, very dull. My onsite partner used to gather all the emeralds, clean them up, wrap them in gauze, soak them in mineral oil, then put the whole gauze wrapped package over a 100 watt light bulb for a few weeks to 'treat' the emerald with heat. After being treated, the emerald also acted differently under fluorescent and UV light. We would wholesale the stones to buyers who came onsite, and we never dealt with the jewelry trade. The buyers all knew the stones were treated, and didn't care as they were mainly concerned with size and color and weight. I brought a treated stone back to the states and had a local jeweler look at it proclaiming it to be the best stone he ever saw. I showed him the equal stone but untreated and he couldn't believe the difference. Deception really does work in the gem trade with everything from obvious phony stones, to treated stones, to cut stones made to look bigger, and a whole other bag of tricks. One lesson I learned is that 90% of the emeralds sold in the USA have been 'treated' in one way or another, with only the untreated high end stones, going to Winston, Tiffany, Stern, etc.
Spot on.
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