Cabochon stones, are they true stars of the gem stone world
What is a cabochon stone?.
It is a dome like stone often ovoid or round. So why is a stone polished as a cabochon opposed to facetted. Easy, generally the stone is too soft as most semi precious stones wont take a facet or are too included or have too many faults inside the stone to make it look good facetted. Alluvial sapphire and rubies that come from places such as Madagascar or Myanmar (Burma) have been churned up by glacial action or rivers often tend to be dull and round, whilst precious stone, due to the way stones were formed, do not lend themselves well to cutting as heavily included.They discovered if polished well they attract the light and make a star normally a 5 point star in the stone which moves in the light. A good use for these stones.
Moonstones, turquoise, cats eyes all lend themselves well to a cabochon cut, again often if turned on the plane catching the light in a very different way giving a colour change.
The Edwardians and Art Nouveau designers, perhaps as an aside to the mass production of items, and therefore looking for good looking inexpensive alternatives, found cabochon stone worked really well in their designs often using the stones to make bodies and heads of insects and bugs which were very popular in their designs and of course worked well for this purpose.
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