Should I buy a Native Cut Stone and use it as a preform?
The answer is a cautious maybe. Remember that there is a huge amount of man-made material being sold as real, especially cut (it is a lot harder to tell when cut). Quartz is not a good idea, neither is any type of Sapphire. It is just too easy to get taken. Tourmaline is a possible, there are no good fakes yet. Garnets are also possible, but usually anything good is expensive. Unless you are very good at judging shapes and yields. I would say proceed with caution. If you are not careful, the yields will come out a lot lower than you think. The main reason for this is that you will have to cut off a lot of rough to get the proper pavilion angle, on a bellied cut. It ruins your yield. A lot of times you really would be better off paying more for what you want in a piece of rough material that seems more expensive, but really is not when you figure it all out. Look at all rough in different lighting conditions before you buy it. Get it out from under the show case lights (where it is at i
