Crown Point jeweler cuts 700-carat gemstone

Steve Moriarty recently cut a 700-carat gemstone valued at about $200,000.

The gemstone is a peach-colored morganite from Mozambique. A friend offered him the uncut, unshaped stone.

“I was very interested, but it was a very expensive piece of material,” Moriarty said in a press release . “When you start getting into $70,000 to $80,000 gems, the potential buyers and sales become a bit more limited.”

It took Moriarty over 30 hours to cut the stone.

“In one day, I spent about 11 hours straight and managed to hurt my shoulder a bit during that cutting process,” he said. “Just the amount of time doing the same action, you know, I'm still kind of suffering from that.”

Moriarty got into gem cutting after selling colored stones to jewelers around the Midwest. A man from a gem and lapidary supply place invited Moriarty to use his gem cutting machine. They spent 12 hours cutting synthetic quartz. Today, Moriarty owns Moriarty’s Gem Art, a family-run business.

Moriarty’s finished morganite is about 300 carats. He was asked what would someone would do with a gemstone this size.

“Just hold it and enjoy it. I mean, you could make a pendant out of it,” he said. “Most likely, a collector or a museum would maybe have an interest in something of this sort.”

Videos of Moriarty cutting the morganite on YouTube and TikTok received millions of views.

After taking a break, Moriarty plans to cut other gems, such as a large opal he has from Ethiopia.

“It'll be an interesting cutting because it's just a beautiful opal, and something in the 300 to 400 carat size would surely be something unique to look at,” Moriarty said.

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