spinels

[Arkteia]

Can anyone suggest best websites for high-quality spinel?

 

[chrono]

Do you have a particular colour and size? Some places tend to carry certain colours. Are you looking for precision cutting or just very good native cutting?
www.Palagems.com is a good place to start.
www.Swalagemtraders.com has excellent Mahenges (pink/red spinels)
www.whitesgems.com Jeff is a precision cutter so you'll have to inquire if he is able to get the size and colour that you are looking for.

 

[movie zombie]

high quality spinel: sigh
high quality spinel = high prices.....and deservedly! high end, high quality spinel is indeed gorgeous. unfortunately, i don''t have the budget.....sigh.

as noted above, pala is a great place to start. you will need to work with a jeweler on their list and have stones sent to that jeweler. worth it!

mz

 

[Arkteia]

Well, actually I am looking for a bright-red spinel, with no blue or purple secondary tones. Someone posted similar stone in e-rings. Was looking for Burmese because I do not know much about Mahende spinel; is it worth looking for? Precision cut OK but not necessary. Round or cushion cut is the best.

Would you recommend Mahende or should I stick with Burmese one?

 

[movie zombie]

you should get what pleases YOUR eye. if you''re looking for bright red, no dark over tones, no pink but more stop light red it may take a while.....but would be so worth it.

mz

 

[Liane]

Mahenge spinels are beautiful and Swala has some stunning ones at very reasonable prices right now (I''m currently sitting on a 3-carat emerald-cut Mahenge from them, but that is a long story for another day...), but most of Swala''s are more pink than red, so if you want pure red you should probably look at Pala first.

I certainly plan to, when my frivolity budget is less depleted.

 

[chrono]

Ohh...Liane, so you bought the 3.11 ct step cut emerald? I can''t wait to see your pictures. The Mahenges get very red in the 5 ct and upward range, more so with something over 7 ct.

 

[portia]

I agree with Liane that you might want to try Pala if you''re looking for a bright red spinel. I''m in the process of buying a Mahenge spinel from Swalagemtraders. From what I''ve heard/seen on PS they have excellent stones, but most of them are pink-red which is what I was looking for.

 

[chrono]

Date: 12/1/2009 4:56:13 PM
Author: crasru
Well, actually I am looking for a bright-red spinel, with no blue or purple secondary tones. Someone posted similar stone in e-rings. Was looking for Burmese because I do not know much about Mahende spinel; is it worth looking for? Precision cut OK but not necessary. Round or cushion cut is the best.

Would you recommend Mahende or should I stick with Burmese one?

In that case, your best bet is to try Palagems. To get something straight red that isn''t too dark in tone and little extinction is major moolah. Burmese is usually the nicest but not necessarily so. Sometimes an unsually pure red Vietnamese stone can be found but that will be rather uncommon as well.

 

[movie zombie]

another vote for pala.....

mz

 

[Liane]

Date: 12/1/2009 9:00:32 PM
Author: Chrono
Ohh...Liane, so you bought the 3.11 ct step cut emerald? I can''t wait to see your pictures.

Not... exactly.

I bought a tsavorite from them a couple of weeks ago. There was a mixup with the parcels and I mistakenly ended up with the 3.11 emerald-cut spinel instead of the cushion tsav that I actually bought. I''ve advised Eric of the mistake and I''ll be sending the spinel to its actual owner (hopefully in exchange for my tsav!) as soon as I get that information. In the meantime I''m just admiring the spinel since I have it lying around anyway. Not my style at all (I don''t really go for emerald cuts or this particular shade of pink-red), but it''s a completely beautiful stone and whoever bought it is a very lucky person. I''d never seen a top Mahenge in person so I count this as a fortuitous mistake for giving me that opportunity.

 

[Lovinggems]

Date: 12/2/2009 4:43:38 AM
Author: Liane

Date: 12/1/2009 9:00:32 PM
Author: Chrono
Ohh...Liane, so you bought the 3.11 ct step cut emerald? I can''t wait to see your pictures.

Not... exactly.

I bought a tsavorite from them a couple of weeks ago. There was a mixup with the parcels and I mistakenly ended up with the 3.11 emerald-cut spinel instead of the cushion tsav that I actually bought. I''ve advised Eric of the mistake and I''ll be sending the spinel to its actual owner (hopefully in exchange for my tsav!) as soon as I get that information. In the meantime I''m just admiring the spinel since I have it lying around anyway. Not my style at all (I don''t really go for emerald cuts or this particular shade of pink-red), but it''s a completely beautiful stone and whoever bought it is a very lucky person. I''d never seen a top Mahenge in person so I count this as a fortuitous mistake for giving me that opportunity.

How''s the colour saturation on the emerald cut Liane? As you know from my other thread I''m getting the smaller one.

 

[Liane]

The color saturation is phenomenal. Everything about this stone is pretty much perfect. The cut is excellent, the clarity is superb (I can''t find a single flaw after louping it obsessively with a 30x for... well... a lot of time, let''s just put it that way

), and the color just glows in every kind of lighting. I took this stone in to my local colored-gems specialist and he was in awe at the spinel''s quality. ID''ed it immediately as a superb Mahenge from the first glance at like five feet away.

So basically what I am saying is that if the Swala spinel you''re looking at is remotely like this one, you want to grab that sucker yesterday.

 

[Lovinggems]

Date: 12/2/2009 5:43:02 AM
Author: Liane
The color saturation is phenomenal. Everything about this stone is pretty much perfect. The cut is excellent, the clarity is superb (I can''t find a single flaw after louping it obsessively with a 30x for... well... a lot of time, let''s just put it that way

), and the color just glows in every kind of lighting. I took this stone in to my local colored-gems specialist and he was in awe at the spinel''s quality. ID''ed it immediately as a superb Mahenge from the first glance at like five feet away.

So basically what I am saying is that if the Swala spinel you''re looking at is remotely like this one, you want to grab that sucker yesterday.

I hope so too, but I think the larger one is the better one, I hesitated as I blew my gem budget like a couple of months ago. However, I do like the lines of the smaller one more.

Apologies to crasru for the threadjack, but in the future if you are looking for a high quality pink/red spinel, swalagemtraders is a very good website to visit.

 

[chrono]

Thanks for your review, Liane. I really love Swala’s Mahenges too, and I hear that most of the latest batch is of high quality. So....you’ll have to start a new thread on this cushion tsavorite you just purchased.

 

[cellentani]

Date: 12/2/2009 5:43:02 AM
Author: Liane
The color saturation is phenomenal. Everything about this stone is pretty much perfect. The cut is excellent, the clarity is superb (I can''t find a single flaw after louping it obsessively with a 30x for... well... a lot of time, let''s just put it that way

), and the color just glows in every kind of lighting. I took this stone in to my local colored-gems specialist and he was in awe at the spinel''s quality. ID''ed it immediately as a superb Mahenge from the first glance at like five feet away.

So basically what I am saying is that if the Swala spinel you''re looking at is remotely like this one, you want to grab that sucker yesterday.

Since you''re sitting on it, you might as well take some photos to um, help educate the rest of us about what a top-grade Mahenge spinel looks like.

 

[Liane]

If I still have it this weekend I''ll try to take a couple of pictures. I''m embarrassingly bad at photographing gemstones and jewelry, though, so there''s no way I''m going to be able to do justice to this stone.