- Joined
- Jul 31, 2014
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- 19,956
Hi All,
In the course of searching for moonstone and looking at stuff from Myanmar/Sri Lanka/Burma, I stumbled across bright red, almost glowing, spinels. I immediately fell in love.
For reference, here are my dream stones (which are over 2x more expensive than the most expensive one I'm considering below):


I need to stick to a reasonable budget, but there are a few options I'm considering:
1. https://youtu.be/kIccRogv4EQ (1.4ct, $650)
2-3. The first or third stone below. Stone 1 is 1.3ct, $500, and stone 3 is 1.64, $750)

4-5. One of the two below. The one on the left is 2ct, $500 (because inclusions on the pavilion that won't show when set). One on the right is 1ct, $250.
EDIT: The seller of 4-5 is awesome and helpful with my questions. He said that the brightness of stone 5 is closest to my "ideal" but the color/saturation of stone 4 is closer to my "ideal". I trust him, so wanted to add that.
4-5.
So the question is: which of these (if any) should I buy, or should I save for my "dream" stones, even though I could buy one of the above AND set it (and still have $ leftover) for the price of the "ideal" stone.
In the course of searching for moonstone and looking at stuff from Myanmar/Sri Lanka/Burma, I stumbled across bright red, almost glowing, spinels. I immediately fell in love.
For reference, here are my dream stones (which are over 2x more expensive than the most expensive one I'm considering below):


I need to stick to a reasonable budget, but there are a few options I'm considering:
1. https://youtu.be/kIccRogv4EQ (1.4ct, $650)
2-3. The first or third stone below. Stone 1 is 1.3ct, $500, and stone 3 is 1.64, $750)

4-5. One of the two below. The one on the left is 2ct, $500 (because inclusions on the pavilion that won't show when set). One on the right is 1ct, $250.
EDIT: The seller of 4-5 is awesome and helpful with my questions. He said that the brightness of stone 5 is closest to my "ideal" but the color/saturation of stone 4 is closer to my "ideal". I trust him, so wanted to add that.
4-5.

So the question is: which of these (if any) should I buy, or should I save for my "dream" stones, even though I could buy one of the above AND set it (and still have $ leftover) for the price of the "ideal" stone.