Color Wheel of Melee
Gemstones come in a wide variety of types and colors. In the past you, would see melee (stones generally below 2.5mm) in diamonds and colored in rubies, sapphires and emeralds. Today, designers and consumers are looking for a wider selection of gems and colors to have in their jewelry. That is where Columbia Gem House comes in! We have the largest variety and selection of colors anywhere in the world! Most stones start at 1.5mm and go up from there.
For more explanation, we will start with this “color wheel of melee” so people can better understand their options. We produce approximately 50 gem varieties of melee in about 100 colors or options. In addition, nearly all of these we can trace and code them through our Fair Trade Protocol system. You can work with your clients to select colors and then tell them the story of the people, place and environment that produced their gemstone. Knowing this information helps people appreciate the rarity and beauty of the gems and the history of their origins.
We are really proud of our gems and, wherever possible, we do not treat them. Still, there are some that are treated and in that case we only use heat. This is especially important when we say heated sapphire. This means absolutely heat only; no flux, no beryllium, no glass, no titanium… just heat. We never cook foreign elements into our sapphires to change the color or clarity. We are positive of this because we have the most advanced heating system available anywhere, and we do all our own heating, just like our own cutting. Also, if it is heated we will tell you. This is important when buying small melee stones that you cannot realistically do treatment reports on.
What are some of the stones we cut in melee size rounds? Well, we cut every color of the rainbow and from all over the world. We do keep track of all origins and separate them in the event you want gems from a certain location. We cut stones like iolite, peridot, citrine, amethyst, garnet, fire opal, apatite, spinel, sapphire, ruby and many more. Take tourmaline for example, we have various locations on top of having a have full of colors like pink, peach, purple, green, teal, orange, red, blue, seafoam and each with shades lighter or darker. We really do have all the colors of the rainbow and that’s just talking about one gem variety. We also offer more exotic faceted gems like lazulite, neon green beryl, turquoise, andalusite and precious topaz.
If you think of a color, we can tell you what gem varieties we have it in. If you have a gem variety you prefer, we can let you know what colors we offer. So, we encourage you to design with color to your hearts content and we are here to support you with the finest selection of melee available anywhere!
