A plea for inclusions

Professor Mican, one of my highly esteemed mentors and one of the founding fathers of gemmology in Austria, had two answers ready at hand: "Yes, in places" and "Yes, because this stone is too small to accomodate an inclusion".

Seriously now, it is about time someone took up the cudgels. In the following you may find some arguments to put inclusions into the right perspective and help you sell gems despite or rather on account of their inclusions.

The first and most important point is: inclusions give evidence of the genuineness of a gem. The right kind of inclusion, that is. Of course most synthetics and imitations e.g. glass also show inclusions but they do differ from those of the real stuff. In by far the most cases the natural origin of gems still is determined by detecting diagnostic inclusions through the loupe or microscope.

Secondly: inclusions make gemstones affordable to Tom, Dick and Harry. Well, many gems to many Toms, Dicks and Harrys, at least. For instance largish eyeclean emeralds of fine colour are so rare and expensive, that only a very small minority of the people on this planet can actually shell out enough money to buy one of those rare treasures.

Thirdly: diagnostic inclusions facilitate the re-selling of gemstones. If you, heaven forbid, have to sell the family heirloom fast, you are in a bad position if all your high quality stones are eyeclean and you cannot present an internationally acknowledged certificate. No jeweller the world over will buy a high end gemstone without proof of genuineness and for that a single minute cystal inclusion, detectable by the standard 10x-loupe, will do.

So for us the ideal gemstone is not internally flawless but rather sports at least one diagnostic inclusion, possibly well hidden near the girdle so it does not disturb the brilliance and overall beauty of the gem.