Sage Gemological Laboratories

Services

What we do

Clear answers about the stones you own, buy, or love, plus a few we've cut and set ourselves.

Gemstone Identification

Natural, synthetic, or simulant? We test with standard gemological instruments and tell you exactly what you have.

Diamond Evaluation

Color, clarity, cut, and carat weight assessed in the lab, with plain-English notes on what drives a stone's value.

Cabochons & Lapidary

Hand-cut cabochons from Utah rough and petrified wood, plus custom cutting of your own stones.

Silver Jewelry

Handmade sterling settings for one-of-a-kind stones, whether it's ours or a piece of your own rockhounding.

Polished turquoise, opal, and agate cabochons — Turquoise & opal cabochons

Petrified wood, rough stones, and a labeled specimen box — Petrified wood & rough

Amethyst cluster, ammonite, and labeled river stones on a shelf — From the collection

The Lab

Instruments, not guesswork

Every identification starts with measurements. Here's what's on the bench.

Microscope

Inclusions, growth features, and treatment evidence under magnification.

Refractometer

Refractive index and birefringence, the fingerprint of a gem species.

Polariscope

Singly or doubly refractive? Separates whole families of stones at a glance.

Dichroscope

Reveals pleochroism, the shift in color a stone shows from different directions.

Spectroscope

Reads the absorption lines that point to a stone's coloring elements.

10× Loupe

The first look, and often the most telling one.

The Shop

From rough to ready

Out back is where rough becomes something you'd wear: cut, shaped, polished, and set by hand.

Cabochon grinding and polishing machine in the shop — The cabbing machine

Saws

Rough is slabbed and trimmed to find the best pattern and color in every stone.

Cabbing Wheels

Each cabochon is ground, shaped, and polished by hand, from coarse grit to mirror finish.

Silversmithing Bench

Sterling bezels and settings are cut, soldered, and finished to fit each stone.

Why "Sage"

A lifetime of bringing rocks home earned a family nickname. Now it's the name on the door.

Sage Gemological is a small, independent lab in Cache Valley. No sales quota and no stake in what your stone turns out to be: just careful testing, honest answers, and a real love of the stones themselves.

Every stone has a story. We read it.