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<blockquote data-quote="Xetheral" data-source="post: 9510527" data-attributes="member: 6802765">To my limited understanding of gemology, your assumption that gem cutting is mostly about mechanical removal of inclusions isn't true in the real world. While one could, of course, design a fantasy setting where your assumption is true, it seems overkill to do so just to allow gemstones' cut and crushed values to be equal.I am not aware of any synthetic gem production technology that uses purified natural gemstone as its source material. Although there could be one that I'm not aware of, I'd be surprised if one exists, because the materials in gemstones are extremely common, so I'd expect it's always going to be less expensive to get pure inputs from other sources. In particular, rubies (and sapphires) are corundum, a crystalline form of aluminum oxide, and getting pure aluminum oxide from ordinary bauxite is comparatively straightforward.That's not the same as cheap or easy, but I'd be shocked if there's a method for purifying naturally occuring corundum that is cheaper or easier. And since synthetic gem production involves growing a new crystal, the fact that naturally occurring conundum is already in the desired crystalline form doesn't provide any advantages I can think of.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Xetheral, post: 9510527, member: 6802765"] To my limited understanding of gemology, your assumption that gem cutting is mostly about mechanical removal of inclusions isn't true in the real world. While one could, of course, design a fantasy setting where your assumption is true, it seems overkill to do so just to allow gemstones' cut and crushed values to be equal. I am not aware of any synthetic gem production technology that uses purified natural gemstone as its source material. Although there could be one that I'm not aware of, I'd be surprised if one exists, because the materials in gemstones are extremely common, so I'd expect it's always going to be less expensive to get pure inputs from other sources. In particular, rubies (and sapphires) are corundum, a crystalline form of aluminum oxide, and getting pure aluminum oxide from ordinary bauxite is comparatively straightforward. That's not the same as cheap or easy, but I'd be shocked if there's a method for purifying naturally occuring corundum that is cheaper or easier. And since synthetic gem production involves growing a [I]new[/I] crystal, the fact that naturally occurring conundum is already in the desired crystalline form doesn't provide any advantages I can think of. [/QUOTE]

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