Blue spinel

[Arkteia]

TL, as I have promised, I am posting pictures of blue spinel I acquired Amguy's way. Extinction, as he promised, but the color is sapphire blue and saturated. Since it is not certified, I hope he was able to verify that it was spinel. It does not fluoresce, but I am not sure all of them do (in fact, I am sure not all of them fluoresce). It would be interesting to find out the origin, but I am not going to send it to GIA for that.
Or should I?

 

[Arkteia]

And by the way, I have seen worse extinction in spinel. You can find it it my earlier threads.

 

[T L]

I can't see the photo on PS2.0 because of my browser When are they going to fix this problem?

 

[sparkles]

Gorgeous.....wanted to let you know love your Tsav setting and all the other goodies you have been collecting...!

 

[chrono]

I see a nice rich blue but the extinction is quite extensive (80% to 90% of the spinel). As far as I know, for some strange reason, blue spinels do not exhibit fluorescence unlike red spinels which has to do with the contaminant which gives the spinel their colouring.

 

[Arkteia]

Thank you, Chrono and Sparkles! TL, try Mozilla!
I am the queen of extinction, I think! But I am working at it. My next thread is a question about the setting. So many good stones are cut bad way that you have to either settle for it or fiddle with the settings.
Fluorescence is an interesting phenomenon. Technically, it is just change of energetic level of an electron, which at this time emits a quantum of light. My friend who is a mathematician believes that stones colored by heavier metals should fluoresce more but this does not seem to be the case. I hope GIA has it in their manuals. (Not what fluoresces, but why).

 

[brandy_z28]

Love that blue, it's a shame it has so much extinction going on.

 

[Arkteia]

Yeah, but it looks better in real life. For the price of it, I can stand extinction. At least it doesn' turn grey in daylight.

 

[colormyworld]

Yeah, but it looks better in real life. For the price of it, I can stand extinction. At least it doesn' turn grey in daylight.

I have not seen many turn gray in daylight crarsu. Perhaps a little greenish on some. An old fashioned incandescent light bulb is in my opinion the worst light for viewing these things. Many blue spinels turn inky and seem to lose saturation in that type of lighting.

 

[Arkteia]

Yeah, but it looks better in real life. For the price of it, I can stand extinction. At least it doesn' turn grey in daylight.

I have not seen many turn gray in daylight crarsu. Perhaps a little greenish on some. An old fashioned incandescent light bulb is in my opinion the worst light for viewing these things. Many blue spinels turn inky and seem to lose saturation in that type of lighting.

Then I simply had different luck or whatever because all my spinels either look better or the same in incandescent lighting, or look different but never worse. I yet have to work with this one. Maybe Seattle light is so weird that I never see "normal color" of the stones.
The best lighting? In my walk-in dim closet, next to the window. Daytime colors look great, when I turn on the light, evening colors look stunning. I don't know what the deal is. Can not take photos there, though, because it is too dark for my camera.

 

[Arcadian]

The color on it is very lovely! its got extinction but I think that spinels color and that saturated it inevitable. None of my blue ones have fluor so not unusual yours does not.

-A

 

[T L]

Crasru,
Gems that have iron do not fluor from what I've heard. Iron is usually an element within blue sapphires and blue spinels.

 

[T L]

Yay, I'm on my other computer and I can finally SEE the spinel. It's very pretty. Kind of dark, but at least it's blue, not some charcoal looking thing.

 

[marcy]

Very pretty. Great color.

 

[Arkteia]

Thank you all for your support.
It does not look so extinct in real life. Actually, many stones that look very extinct in photos look brighter and livelier in reality. I remember MaRe's term "intentional extinction" and think that there may be something in it. What it means, I think, is when the cutter knows that the stone will look brilliant and bright despite extinction. (I do not think that in this stone it was intentional, though. Just a bad cut).
TL - I know that your computers play constant trick you you . But at least it is not grey!

Re. fluorescence - I wonder if it is a function of valence and not the metal itself. Because chromium fluoresces in some stones and not in others. I have to look into it, it is so interesting!