Brown - Sapphire? Diamond? What is a nice brown stone?

[treysar]

I''m thinking I want a nice, large brown stone - this means a diamond is probably out, since a large diamond of any color is mucho bucks. Are there any nice brown stones out there?

 

[Kaleigh]

The one stone that comes to mind is a smokey topaz??? I wonder if you could find a nice brown tourmaline?? Brown isn''t my expertise, but thought I''d give it a shot. Good luck, hopefully the experts will chime in and help you!!!!

 

[widget]

Hi, Treysar...

The first thing that came to my mind was "smoky quartz", then maybe topaz or perhaps tourmaline...

A brown diamond would be the most fun, of course. But it couldn''t be very big!

Here''s a picture of one I saved long ago just because I think it looks so neat...almost taupe: 66.34cts, VVS-2....estimated value: between 360 and 500 thousand dollars!

widget

 

[widget]

author: widget

The first thing that came to my mind was ''smoky quartz'', then maybe topaz or perhaps tourmaline...

Hey, Kaleigh! Great minds.......

 

[Kaleigh]

I was just giving it a shot, glad I wasn't too far off the mark. Widget is our in house colored stone guru!!!!

ETA: Brown diamonds are a given that's why I didn't mention them, but they would be fun. Have no clue about prices though......

 

[Richard M.]

Hi Treysar,

Assuming you want a transparent faceted gem, you might look for brown zircon, sphene, spinel, spessartite garnet (some shades), hessonite grossular garnet, sinhalite, topaz, andalusite, and tourmaline as well as smoky and citrine quartz. There are probably other possibilities that don''t come to mind right now.

Best bets for large and available (depending on how large) might be zircon, sphene, hessonite, topaz, andalusite and the quartzes. Some Nigerian tourmaline is also distinctly brownish and occurs in large sizes. Most of these stones will have overtones of other colors. Large brown untreated natural topazes are sometimes available.

Since brown shades in some of the above are not considered big sellers, you may have to ask around.

Richard M.

 

[Matata]

Citrine, topaz, zircon.

 

[TKC]

Brown topaz with a little bit orange hue is very beautiful. I have one. It is very beautiful and sparkly. Usually brown topaz comes in large sizes.

 

[TKC]

I forget, I also have a brown-orange spinel with round brilliant cut, just like diamond cut. It is very bright (eventhough the color is intense), beautiful and unique. I will try to take a picture and post it here.

 

[valeria101]

Almost everything comes in brown ! Sapphire is unusual, but there are some, diamonds are notorious already, my pic might be topaz (there is allot of it with pleasant warm shades), crysoberyl or garnet.

Here are some:

Brown topaz is not too expensive, so nice cuts are readily available. Gemline aparently experiments exotic ones on this material - I've seen interesting pieces in their shopw along the line. You might want to ask about their 'competition cut' topaz. These ones below appear among their current listings:

link


These are diamonds... at DBL (diamondsbylauren.com) and H&P (fancydiamonds.net)

A brown (week color change) sapphire at Cherrypicked.com

beautiful shape, no ?


Tourmaline at AJS

And now the less usual ones:

Crysoberyl at Lapilia.com

Mali & Malaya garnet at Multicolor

Andaluzite at ACstones, Cresla and WSFgems. Usually these stones are small, 3-4 cts like these is already quite large, relatively, and the 7 cts of the long cushion HUGE!

& link to Cresla (the picture is too large to show)

These stones ar strongly dichroic - show reddish brown, yellow and brown from different directions, and some stones show mixhed shades of all these mixed due to their cut. This is what makes andaluzite interesting, otherwise there wouldn't be much to say for it. Some tourmaline has this property too although the shades are not an exact match to the point of confusing the two.


Zircon should come in brownish shades and the stones look quite nice, but none particularly eye catching turned up on my usual websites. There must be some around, and if not, one can be cut for you as you want it - the material is not expensive at all, so it would be feasible (and appealing, IMO) to have an intriguing cut done on order.

Zircon is more brilliant thansapphire, and this one seems to show it at last...

sold by ACstones

This stone comes in many more shades, both greenish-cold and warm yellowsh and orange brown. This one is cinamon colored zircon (link). Sorry for the small picture - down the link is a large one showing the unusually beautiful cut.

Is 'cinamon' a sort of brown ?
If so, here's a pair of spinels at Africagems that match the description:

I can't say I have seen trully brown spinel - more of a rust color. And they are usually misslabeled 'orange' or 'orange-pink' or something and not priced high at all when brownish for lack of saturation. Try cresla.com and gemcal.com for some like that.

The good news - sure you know - is that brown is hardly an expensive color in any material. Lucky if you like it ! Allot of attractive autumn color pieces are quite a bargain.

Hope some of this helps... It surely was fun to put up the list

 

[treysar]

Thanks for all the answers - you guys "rock"!

Valeria - thanks for the pics - awesome!!

 

[Lurchie]

Great pics, Valeria.

Multicolour.com lets you do a search by color. I''ve wasted countless hours on their website. Have fun!

 

[DiaDiva]

Treysar, I have a tourmaline pendant that''s a nice reddish brown. It''s around 10-12mm (can''t remember the carats). Here it is.

 

[treysar]

Dia, that is GORGEOUS!!

 

[TKC]

Here is my brown spinel

 

[Libster]

I was just checking out the new Ross Simons catalog last night and loving some of their smoky quartz rings. I''m attaching one that is sooo cool. It''s 7.85 smoky quartz wrapped in .75ct of pink tourmaline. For the bargain price of $549.95....

 

[valeria101]

oups... the picture attache is not the right one

 

[valeria101]

A compilation of these should have went in the poct above instead of the mistake.

Grandite garnets from Kayes / Mali at Americanthai...

 

[BWise]

Date: 7/20/2005 1:23:15 PM
Author: valeria101
A compilation of these should have went in the poct above instead of the mistake.

Ana, do you sleep at all? - how come you know every site with every kind of stones they sell and always can find them?!

You deserve a special title, how about ''Gem Counselor''?

 

[valeria101]

Date: 7/20/2005 11:38:24 PM
Author: yingh

Ana, do you sleep at all? - how come you know every site with every kind of stones they sell and always can find them?!

A...Yay! no... I only keep track of a few shops for cross-refference. It is my way of juging which is to be trusted an with exactly what.

Pricescope is the only place I know where such hints found a way to the light