Aoyama Gems

Aoyama Gems I cut and sell precision faceted gemstones from selected rough sourced from around the world. I hope you enjoy them as much as I do.

I have been captivated by the beauty of gems and minerals since I was a young child. It started with picking up interesting stones from the gravel driveway behind our house, to joining the local lapidary club and learning to cab. Later I taught myself to facet with a hand faceter that I made my Dad drive for a couple of hours searching around Seattle during our vacation, for the maker whose name m

y Mom and I vaguely recalled from a gem show months before. Still later I bought a faceting machine and started an even greater obsession of turning crystals into sparkling gems. Through the years I have amassed a collection of interesting and beautiful materials – and now I would like to offer some of my creations to you. I offer custom faceted gemstones and gemstone rough from around the world. Each cut gemstone I offer here is hand crafted to reveal and enhance the beauty of these gems. Through careful examination of the rough gems I adjust the cutting designs to adapt to each piece of rough, creating brilliant treasures. Satisfaction Guarantee:
I strive to ensure that the photos and descriptions accurately portray the item in question. While I hope you are delighted with your purchase, if you are not satisfied for any reason, please contact me right away. You may return the unaltered item(s) in its original packaging within 10 days of receiving it for a full refund less shipping and handling charges. Terms and Conditions:

Payment:
Paypal is accepted for purchases up to USD$2,000. Wire transfer accepted for purchases over USD$2,000. In Canada, Interac online payments are also accepted. Taxes and Duties:
For purchases in Canada GST will be applied. BC Provincial sales tax will apply for goods shipped to a BC address. Any other taxes, duties and import fees are the responsibility of the purchaser. Shipping:
Items will be shipped once payment has cleared. All items will be shipped using tracking and insurance with the accurate content description and value. I will not under-report the value nor provide inaccurate or fraudulent content descriptions to avoid duties and taxes. This is to protect both you and me in case of any shipping damage or loss. If you receive a parcel that has any visible signs of damage or tampering (cuts, taped or patched-over areas, rips, tears etc.) make sure you inform the delivery person and fill out a damage report before signing for receipt. Take photos if possible and notify us immediately. It is the responsibility of the person signing for the shipment to ensure the package has been delivered without damage or tampering. Returns and Refunds:
If you wish to return an item please contact me right away. Returned items must be in their unaltered state in the original packaging. Buyer is responsible for return shipping - tracking and insurance is recommended. Your refund will be sent as soon as the item has been received and confirmed.

I finished this 1.24ct pinky-orange tourmaline last night. It had been on a dop for over a year because the design I’d c...
12/31/2025

I finished this 1.24ct pinky-orange tourmaline last night. It had been on a dop for over a year because the design I’d chosen relied on facets to be cut references off of each other sequentially, meaning that every facet further along became more and more out of alignment due to accumulated over/under cutting. Even though I was being very careful once I got to the next tier of facets it all went to hell. After recutting it twice I put it in the rack and forgot about it.

The other day I needed the dop that this tourmaline was stuck to, and realizing it was still a respectably large gem with good colour I decided it was worth saving. I spent a few hours creating a new design that would preserve most of its weight and shape, then proceeded to cut it.

As you can see from the cutting photos it went pretty well. One thing that I did with this one was to polish the crown facets in reverse order, starting from the ones neared the table then working my way to the girdle. This, along with the design only having 2 table meets meant that I could tweak the facets during polishing to have pretty close to perfect meets.

The result turned out really nicely! It’s a bit more plum-toned in daylight vs indoors, with the orange-pink highlights flashing as it moves.

12/02/2025

A quick video of the 1.92ct Tanga garnet in overcast daylight

There was a find of bright rose pink garnets near Tanga, Tanzania in the last couple of years which have become sought a...
12/02/2025

There was a find of bright rose pink garnets near Tanga, Tanzania in the last couple of years which have become sought after for their amazing colour and brightness. I now know why!

This beauty is a 1.92ct brilliant cut Tanga garnet gemstone. It has a slight colour shift between light sources and this gem looks unreal, even in person. The photos accurately capture the shade and liveliness of this garnet.

As a side note, this Tanga garnet might be the most perfect gem I’ve cut in recent memory. No mis-indexing or other errors, and cutting in the table didn’t require me to adjust any of the facets to make all the meets!

12/02/2025

A quick video of the Brazilian blue tourmaline

Here is a stunning blue tourmaline from Brazil! When I saw it in my box of faceting rough it kind of popped out at me wi...
12/02/2025

Here is a stunning blue tourmaline from Brazil! When I saw it in my box of faceting rough it kind of popped out at me with its brilliant ocean blue, so for once I wasn’t wasting time trying to decide which gem I wanted to cut.

It started out just over 5ct rough which gave me a 2.76ct cleaned piece to start from. After a bit of consideration I decided on a relatively simple oval with a tall checkerboard type crown.

Like the other recent gemstones I’ve cut, I had a brain fart and once again mis-indexed, resulting in a pavilion facet where one shouldn’t be. As with the others I just repeated the mistake to make it seem intentional and symmetric, and in the end it actually seems to make the gem perform better!

It finished easily, only throwing a slight curveball when a rutile inclusion broke through, but was able to cut it out without any issues.

The finished gem is 1.35ct of dazzling flashy blue tourmaline with plenty of punch!

11/08/2025

A couple of videos of the latest 5.48ct Tanzanian garnet gemstone. The first video is under midday sunlight and the second is under 6400k LED lighting.

Here is a nice big Tanzanian garnet I got from Fabian at Truth Seeker Gems. It finished a respectable 5.48ct from a 13.7...
11/08/2025

Here is a nice big Tanzanian garnet I got from Fabian at Truth Seeker Gems. It finished a respectable 5.48ct from a 13.7ct piece of almost preformed rough. The design is a slightly modified version of Arya Arkhavan’s Tessellation 3 (F) - like all of his designs great performance with lots of flash and life. It also has a slight colour change under different light sources.

Like the other recent gems I’ve cut this one also had its moments, this time chipping just as I was getting ready to prepolish the pavilion. I accidentally slipped and the garnet fell a cm or so into the copper lap, hard enough to chip the corner. Luckily it was shallow enough that I could grind it out though I had to reduce the crown height a bit as a result.

I think the end gemstone turned out quite well! I’ll post video under different lighting shorty.

10/19/2025

A video of the 2.78ct Afghan tourmaline gem

This piece of Afghan tourmaline has been in my collection since 1999, when I bought it as a part of a larger parcel. I l...
10/19/2025

This piece of Afghan tourmaline has been in my collection since 1999, when I bought it as a part of a larger parcel. I liked the colour but it remained uncut because it has a couple of large internal inclusions which annoyed me, and back in those days tourmaline was cheap so there wasn’t any reason to bother cutting an included gemstone when I could cut clean ones. Fast forward to 2025 when this same tourmaline would cost me at least 5x the price! I saw it sitting in the box and I liked the a-b blue-green colour so decided it was time to cut it.

I modified a design I created back then for short sections of tourmaline with nice a-b axis colour but a dark or ugly c-axis. It keeps the ugly axis (in this case a burnt olive tone) from mixing and dominating the overall finished gemstone colour.

Like the sapphire I just posted, the design suddenly became unique when I once again mis-indexed and cut a facet where one didn’t belong. 8 extra facets later the pavilion looks great and they probably improve the perfect of the design to boot!

No photos cutting the crown again because this time I managed to knock the tourmaline off the dop as I was getting ready to switch laps. After some harsh language and a bit of careful glue work it was largely back on the dop in the correct orientation. Because it wasn’t exactly perfect I had to manually align each facet so that they came out perfectly parallel. It was worth the effort in the end.

The finished tourmaline gem is 2.78ct and has an impressive flash to it.

(I need to get back cutting more so I’m not making so many mistakes!)

I started on this beautiful Madagascar sapphire some time ago. Initially it looked pretty clean and was a good shape, so...
10/19/2025

I started on this beautiful Madagascar sapphire some time ago. Initially it looked pretty clean and was a good shape, so I expected to get a finished stone that would have had slight inclusions around 1.5ct. Alas nature had different plans!

After starting to cut the original design pavilion, I encountered an inclusion which broke thru the surface and took a large amount of grinding to eliminate. This forced me to re-evaluate the stone and choose a different design. The cutting of the new pavilion went smoothly for the most part.

I don’t have any photos of cutting the crown because I spent a good portion of my time cursing new inclusions that broke through, me making indexing mistakes forcing some extra facets to make it look intentional, then dealing another surface-breaking inclusion that happened just as I was about to polish.

The end result is a sparkly 0.7ct finished sapphire gemstone with an absolutely unique design that I couldn’t repeat even if I wanted to 😂

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Vancouver, BC

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