James Evans EG

James Evans EG founded Lustre Gemmology in 2018 in order to develop a new range of practical gemmology tools.  His notable achievements and milestones, alongside the company,  include: 

• 2018: Development begins on the Sheffield Red Compensator.

• 2018: Lustre Gemmology stocks the heavy liquid LST FastFloat.

• 2019: Awarded with a Gemmology Diploma by Gem-A and elected as a Fellow of the Gemmological Association (FGA).

• 2020: First book published, on The History of Synthetic Ruby. The work recognises Antoine Lavoisier as the first person to crystallise corundum as well as the first to fuse ruby (37 years before E. D. Clarke).  It then follows the innovations leading to the industrial production of ruby from the early 20th Century. 

• 2020: First Gemmology Bulletin published, on The First Identification of Spinel. This work highlights the significant contribution of John Woodward to the emerging science of gemmology.

• 2021: Lustre Gemmology has a new logo, based on a doubly-terminated rubellite crystal from the famous Jonas Pocket (discovered in the hillside of Itatiaia, Minas Gerais in 1978).

• 2021: Lustre Gemmology stocks the first Sheffield Red Compensator.

• 2021: Recognised as a European Gemmologist (EG) by The Federation for European Education in Gemmology (FEEG). 

• 2022: First article published in Gemmology Today. Free & Legal responds to the Summer 2022 edition of Gems & Jewellery and its statement that Russian diamonds can be traded "freely and legally" (despite the sanctions imposed on the country's state-owned diamond-miner, ALROSA).

• 2022: Quit Gem-A due to the organisation's disregard for trade sanctions.

• 2022: First article published in The Australian Gemmologist, on The Early History of Synthetic Diamond. 

• 2022: Runner-up in Gem-A's Photographer of the Year contest, with the image Ruby-Filled Glass. This photo shows a fragment of crucible and the thousands of glistening rubies grown upon it by Edmund Frémy and Charles Feil in 1877. The specimen belongs to the Natural History Museum, London (Collection Number: BM. 1926, 1209).

• 2024: Article published in Gemmology Today, on the twentieth century history of gemmology (from 1912 to 1972).