help me pick the best spinel

[chrono]

10 carats of unheated Burmese ruby goodness.

 

[Marlow]

Yours?

And still unset?

Just kidding!

More pictures pleaaassseeeee!!

 

[boerumbiddy]

OMG that is good enough to eat! Whose? Where?

 

[Marlow]

OMG that is good enough to eat! Whose? Where?

Hardness 9 - your dentist will love it....

 

[T L]

OMG that is good enough to eat! Whose? Where?

Hardness 9 - your dentist will love it....

You should do comedy on the side. LMAO!

 

[T L]

TL whose ring is that honker?

I don't know, I just found it online in a photo in someone's blog. All I know is that it's a ruby and it's really really nice.

 

[pregcurious]

For posterity, I wanted to add pictures from the GIA article that Chrono linked to above. The first picture shows what the GIA article considers top Burmese material in a cut red spinel, and an uncut crystal. On my screen the cut stone looks red with a orange secondary color, and the crystal looks more neutral red. They are both very saturated and vivid. The other pictures are in the order they are presented in the article, with their respective captions. There is a picture (satellite4.jpg) of what the article says is a pink spinel, but it looks red on my screen, with a pink secondary. I would also consider this a good color for Burmese, but it is not as saturated as the first red spinel, which looks like more vivid. Both are beautiful!
http://www.gia.edu/spinel-quality-factor

 

[pregcurious]

Here are more pics from the same article

 

[pregcurious]

Last ones:

 

[pregcurious]

Here is a link and pic of the red/pink Burmese spinels at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History. It looks more pink in person than the pic. It is beautiful, none the less.
http://geogallery.si.edu/index.php/en/1006093/spinel-bracelet

 

[dm-smith]

For posterity, I wanted to add pictures from the GIA article that Chrono linked to above. The first picture shows what the GIA article considers top Burmese material in a cut red spinel, and an uncut crystal. On my screen the cut stone looks red with a orange secondary color, and the crystal looks more neutral red. They are both very saturated and vivid. The other pictures are in the order they are presented in the article, with their respective captions. There is a picture (satellite4.jpg) of what the article says is a pink spinel, but it looks red on my screen, with a pink secondary. I would also consider this a good color for Burmese, but it is not as saturated as the first red spinel, which looks like more vivid. Both are beautiful!
http://www.gia.edu/spinel-quality-factor

I fall in love with the left most stone of the second picture
I went to several jewelry stores, and none of them have red spinel larger than 1ct

 

[pregcurious]

Red spinels are very hard to find. The best way is to start contacting people who specialize in colored stones. You can see the vendor list at the top of this forum. It took me quite a while to find the red spinel in my avatar. It is 2 carats.

For colored stones, it is best to specify the "face up" dimensions you are looking for (because cuts are not standard for colored stones), and of course that you want a well cut stone (not to deep, and now so shallow that it has a window.)