The global market is flooded with cheap cabochons. This articles shows you how to recognize a high quality cabochon.
Author: Stefan Austermühle
The global market is flooded by 3 to 5 dollar cabochons. Such cabs are sold massively in gemshows like the ones in Tucson or Denver and are sold on market platforms like Amazon or Etsy, where sellers compete against each other with ever cheaper prices. The main clients for such cabs are wire wrapper and hobby jewelers who themselves sell their products on said internet plattforms. But wire wrapping is actually the oldest form of jewelry production being practised for thousands od years and can produce incredible high quality gems, if done by experienced artists and using high quality materials. But how to recognize high quality?
“The differences between cheap mass-produced cabs and hand-cut high quality cabs are huge and easy to see, once you know what to look for".
Why is it that cabochons are traded for 3-5 USD on gemshows while professional lapidary gemcutters do retail their cabs for 50.- to 150.- USD per piece? The differences in shape and polish between cheap mass-produced cabs and hand-cut high quality cabs are huge, once you know what to look for.
Sharp edges
When there is no edge at all and the border is rounded then those cabs have been most likely mass produced in tumblers. These are machines that shape and polish stones via rotary or vibratory movements. As the stones in those machiens are knocked agaisnt each other all edges do disappear and completely rounded shapes are formed. Actually a stone like that should not even called a cab and it is definitely the lowest quality production on the market.
The next level of cabs are hand-cut by so called "artisans" in development countries that work for unethically low sallaries using old machines and working oriented towards fast mass production. Cabs made this way can be easily recognized by their uneven, rounded or chipped edges, as a clear indication of low quality. Jewelry lovers who are concerned about unfair and unethical labour conditions in other countries should stay away from those kind of cabs.
High quality cabs being cut by experienced master cabbers are easily recognized by their very sharp, clean, completely straight and unchipped edges.
Straight Bezel
High quality cabs have perfectly straight and even bezel, being higly polished without scratches and unchipped.
Cheap cabs have an uneven bezel (side) with varying heights. Mostly towards points and tips of the cabs those sides reduce heights. In the worst cases the sides are badly polished, scratched or chipped.
The edge limiting the dome
The dome of the cab is the rounded face of the cabochon which is the side one sees after the cabochon was set into silver or gold. High quality cabs have perfectly straight, even, sharp and unchipped edges between the side of the cab and the dome. Low quality cabs have rounded off, uneven and sometimes even chipped edges between the side (bezel) and the dome (top part of the cab). Again, if there is no edge at all and the border is rounded then those cabs have been most likely mass produced in tumblers.
The dome
High quality cabs have perfectly shaped, often only slightly domed and nearly flat domes, without any ridges or bumps.
Low quality cabs have often rather high and round domes. Nevertheless those domes are often uneven. One can feel (and sometimes even see) bumps, holes and / or ridges. Especially close to the edge they ofthe show small flat facet-like surface parts.
The Polish
Perfectly polished cabs show sharp-edged light reflections on their surface. Often the surface is mirrorlike and you can see reflections of the surrounding environment.
Low quality cabs have nearly always a bad polish. Bad polish can be identified by looking at the light reflections. If the borders of light reflections are diffuse and not clear cut, the polish is bad. Good polish is mirrorlike or glasslike.
Scratches
Needless to say: Scratches on a cabochon are a no-go from the start.
Scratches can be the result of bad cutting work, when the scratches from the first diamond-grinding tools that shape the cab, have not been eliminated completely by the cabber in the following polishing steps. Such scratches can be easily identified: many times they look like two to five white parralel lines that mostly are less then a mm in length. The area around them often shows a bad polish. This is because the surface in this area is very slightly concave which is why the polishing wheels could not reach down into the hole and eliminate such scratches. Those scratches are an indication for cheap production and careless work.
Long single scratches on a cab are mostly result of bad handling and transport damage. A high quality cabber will either repair such damages or not even offer such cabs.
Materials
Stone is not alike stone. Even within the same type of stone there are always low, middle and high quality materials. Needless to say that high quality cabs are generally made from the highest qualtiy of the material. However recognizing quality cab material might be difficult for the regular client hwo is unfamiliar with the stone, as there are many different indicatiors like flawless transperency in faceted gems or color intensity, beauty of pattern, porosity and others in opaque cabochons.
Unpolished back?
An unpolished back is NOT a indication for bad quality as the back normally disappears in the silver or gold setting and cant be seen.
While an unpolished back is NOT an indication for low quality, a polished back is definitely an additional indication for a very high quality designer cab. In those cases it is possible to set the cab into a silver or gold setting that leaves the back visible.
In summary
High quality cabs are hand-made unique pieces and making them requires experienced gemcutters. As they must be cut with care, producing them often takes 5 to 6 times longer than cutting a cheap mass-product. With labour costs and work experience being the most important factors obviously a high quality 5 dollar cab cant be made. If your cab is offered below 30 USD it is definitely a cheap low quality cab.
Between 30 and 50 USD we do have a gray-zone where high and low quality mixes. it could be a high quality cab made from cheaper stone material or it could be an over-priced low quality cabochon. Applying the above mentioned criteria will help you to differenticate.
Unique hand-made jewelry with top quality designer cabuchons:
With prices above 50 USD you can be pretty sure to have a high quality cabochon in front of you with the exemption of Australia where the pricing levels are much higher and low quality cabs are sold for a totally overprized 70 to 80 australian dollars. However high or low the price may be, in order to be called a high quality cab your cabochons must comply with all of the above mentioned quality indicators.
Finally size:
The size of the cab should not be taklen as an indicator for price. Smaller is not cheaper. In fact the difference in material costs between smaller and bigger cabs are negligible. Labour costs and required experience, however, are much higher for small cabs than for big cabs. It is simply more difficult to hold a small cab in your hand when cutting and polishing it. So small cabs have to be mounted on dop sticks and creating the shape of a small cab requires much more care. So in fact, small cabochons should be even more costly then big cabs, if pricing where fair.
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