A gem dealer's journal — Billie Hughes

AsiaLounges: Following your last answer, do you think that removing colour calls / colour types and origin determination in order to stick to strictly provable data would help labs to be more coherent with one another or is this a fool’s errand either way?

Billie Hughes: Certainly having fewer subjective factors on the report could reduce the number of discrepancies on lab reports on the market, but you wouldn’t eliminate them completely. There may also be ways to modify the way we treat color calls and origin determination that could create more consistent results without doing away with them altogether.

Color types like Pigeon’s Blood and Royal Blue can be highly subjective, so removing those from reports could create more consistency. But it wouldn’t fix the problem of subjective color calls on colored stone reports, because the nomenclature for colored stones has been inconsistent for many years. Many variety names rely on judgements on color. For example, distinguishing between ruby and pink sapphire or green beryl and emerald is subjective. Which tourmalines get called “rubelite” or “indicolite?” Is the trade comfortable with removing “Padparadscha” from sapphire reports? 

With regards to origin, moving to broader origin categories might be a middle ground between issuing very specific country of origin comments vs. getting rid of origin. For example, it can be difficult to separate blue sapphires formed in similar metamorphic deposits like Sri Lanka, Madagascar, and Kashmir (India). But the vast majority of these stones are easy to separate from blue sapphires from magmatic deposits like those in Australia and Thailand. Classifying stones in these kinds of categories would be more consistent. Stones from different types of deposits also tend to be more similar in appearance. However, there are always outliers so this wouldn’t eliminate the problem. Furthermore several years ago one of the world’s most well-known lab tried a similar system, and it never really took off. It seems the market was not ready for this type of system.

We must keep in mind that it is not as simple as just collecting data. How the data is collected can have an impact on results. A lot of our work involves the interpretation of data, and this interpretation is depending on the knowledge, attention to detail, and experience of the gemologist.

Hey Loungers, Today we are proud to receive Mr. Olivier Segura on behalf of L’Ecole – School of Jewelry Arts. We interview him as our friend Lotus Gemology’s E.Billie Hughes gave a series of very successful presentation about gemological inclusions named after their latest book: Inside Out with Olivier himself, in Paris on March 12th 2020 and followed closely by an exhibition : “Discover the Gemstones – Ruby&Sapphire” curated by Billie and Olivier, still on going as we write these lines (September 17th) in L'École Asia Pacifique in Hong Kong. Olivier is a seasoned gemologist that has directed the French Gemmological Laboratory...

Hey Loungers, Today we have the pleasure of concluding the Microteers Arc by interviewing the Light Bender and third Microteer: GIA’s Nathan Renfro! Nathan is a talented and outspoken gemmologist, excellent photographer of course, one of the three legendary Microteers and disciple of the Titan: John Koivula himself! Today we have the opportunity to learn more about Nathan with this interview! Nathan, the floor is yours!   AsiaLounges: First of all thank you very much for agreeing to being with us today Nathan. Can you tell us more about yourself? Who are you Nathan Renfro? Nathan Renfro: Well, I am...

Hey Loungers, By now we have all heard of the legendary Lotus Gemology team. We all know via papers and interviews, the ruby & sapphire colossus, Richard W. Hughes, and his equally talented daughter, E. Billie Hughes. Yet little is known about the missing link in that trinity. Wimon Manorotkul is not only a talented gemmologist in her own right, and a skilled photographer to boot, But she is arguably the person that brought the other two members of her family to the world of gems. You read that right, she is the one who enrolled Richard for his first...

Hey Loungers, Today we have the pleasure of restarting an arc that we began a few years ago with E.Billie Hughes. Today, we are blessed with the presence of the Space Enchanter: Danny Sanchez! We discovered Danny’s work a few years back as we were discussing photomicrography with some of his peers here in Bangkok. Since then, we have had the pleasure of purchasing a few of his shots and finally met him before the COVID folie really kicked in on a world-wide basis at Tucson 2020. Today, we are given the opportunity to discuss his path, his art and...