Dagny Solheim 
I spent six years in a grading lab, hunched over a microscope until my neck felt like it was made of granite, and if there is one thing I learned, it’s that stones are surprisingly aggressive. You don’t need a velvet-lined, gold-plated vault to keep your collection safe, no matter what the high-end boutiques want … Read more
I spent six years hunched over a microscope in a grading lab, and if there is one thing that drives me mad, it’s watching people pay a premium for “mystical energy” when they should be looking at the actual mineralogy. You’ll see shops online claiming that andalusite and its two colours at once is a … Read more
I spent six years hunched over a bench in a grading lab, staring through a loupe until my eyes felt like they were filled with sand. I’ve seen enough “miracle stones” to know that most of the hype around light performance is just expensive marketing fluff designed to separate you from your money. People get … Read more
I spent six years hunched over a bench in a grading lab, looking through a loupe until my eyes burned, and if there is one thing that makes my skin crawl, it is the way people treat the Padparadscha. You’ll see auction houses and online “mystics” using flowery, expensive language to describe a stone that … Read more
I remember sitting in a cramped grading lab in Bergen, squinting through a loupe until my eyes felt like they’d been rubbed with sand, staring at a tray of stones that everyone was calling “mystical.” One particular specimen kept shifting from a deep, stormy violet to a muddy, translucent grey, and the salesperson was leaning … Read more
I spent six years hunched over a bench in a grading lab, looking through a loupe until my eyes felt like they were full of sand. I’ve seen enough high-end jewelry to know that the industry loves to use flowery language to mask a very simple, physical vulnerability. People get so caught up in the … Read more
I spent six years hunched over a bench in a grading lab, my eyes aching from staring through a loupe at nothing but light and tiny, jagged imperfections. I remember one particular afternoon, staring at a stone that looked absolutely perfect in the velvet display case, only to have it look like a cracked frozen … Read more