Namibian Demantoid - what to do with it?

[InToTheMystic]

Hi all,

I popped in to see our local faceter on the weekend as he had advised that he had a new drop of material (I've mentioned him in previous threads), and walked out with a lovely precision cut Namibian Demantoid Garnet (1.8ct, 7.7mm across). It is a beautiful gemstone, and I haven't come close to capturing the colour - every photo I have taken has leached the colour out or introduced non-existent grey, and it looks different in every shot. In reality it is a pure rich grass green, not a pale mint, and I actually thought it was a tsavorite when I first saw it. There are very few inclusions, and presents as eye clean.

The dispersion is quite remarkable, and again I haven't come close to capturing it. It sets off little rainbow sparkles in the sun which are really lovely.





And with some other demantoid rough (a lot more yellow and olive than my stone)

 

[InToTheMystic]

So what to do with it? I was supposed to be working on setting my pear zircon and cab star sapphires, but I think I may bump this lovely to the top of the queue. I'm leery of the softness in a ring, but at the same time it might be a shame to pop this in a pendant where I don't get to see the sparkles myself.

Here it is next to my zircon, which is destined for a pendant. I don't think the proportions are quite right, although I love the blue and green together.



And here it is with my 2.2ct portugese cut Spess (incidentally cut by the same faceter). The Spess is a bit deeper, but they face up as the same size. The colour of the demantoid is not accurate here - it is a much much deeper green than it appears here.



Perhaps a bypass ring of this sort of style? Probably with bezels for protection, rather than claws. It would only be for occasional wear so would hopefully stand the test of time.



What would you do with it? I would appreciate the forum's thoughts on options for this one! Thank you in advance.

 

[Kelli]

I LOVE the bypass ring idea, or since I can never get enough of these… a set of stackers?
Very beautiful stones by the way!

 

[JewelFreak]

I love the bypass ring too! Stackers is also a great thought. They are super together. I'm so jealous of you, having your very own pet faceter who does such nice work on such nice stones!! Wow.

-- Laurie

 

[dk168]

I like both the by-pass ring or a set of stackers ideas, as I would prefer a pink red stone with the Zircon myself.

DK

 

[T L]

Demantoid is a bit soft so a stacker might cause issues with it rubbing against other stones. I would do a bypass with the spess, and halo both. The halo would be a bit protective of the edges. I love that stone, I bet it looks a million times better in person. Bezeling a soft stone like that would also be dangerous unless the jeweler was extremely talented. Most bezels are done rather poorly unfortunately, and they tend to chip the stone.

I have an orange fire opal that I'm considering setting with some Namibian demantoids, so I love the combo of orange and green.

 

[InToTheMystic]

Thanks for the comments all. I like the idea of stackers, but have never gotten around to doing them with solitaires, just eternity bands. Could be fun!

Demantoid is a bit soft so a stacker might cause issues with it rubbing against other stones. I would do a bypass with the spess, and halo both. The halo would be a bit protective of the edges. I love that stone, I bet it looks a million times better in person. Bezeling a soft stone like that would also be dangerous unless the jeweler was extremely talented. Most bezels are done rather poorly unfortunately, and they tend to chip the stone.

I have an orange fire opal that I'm considering setting with some Namibian demantoids, so I love the combo of orange and green.

Thanks TL, that's good advice. And you're definitely right about the jeweller being careful with bezels. I'm fortunate that the one I'll likely be using is the same chap who did my tsavorite earrings for me ([URL='https://www.pricescope.com/community/threads/tsavorite-garnet-earrings-have-arrived.190974/']https://www.pricescope.com/community/threads/tsavorite-garnet-earrings-have-arrived.190974/[/URL]), and he specialises in bezels and working with coloured stones. His particular thing is tourmalines, but I've seen some work he's done with opals, emeralds, zircons and some other soft stones as well, so that does give me a few extra options in that area. Here's a tourmaline necklace that I pulled off his facebook page:



I do like the idea of halos though. I don't have any gems presented in that way yet. I'm also fortunate in having fairly wide stubby size 7.5 fingers so I have enough real estate to play with halos!

Would you just halo the stones and leave the shanks plain, or extend the diamonds further like this?



I also found this variation with bezels which is quite striking. I like the mix of metals too. I think it may run a slight risk of looking like bug antennae with round stones though...

 

[T L]

If you like more bling, then all the better, so yeah to diamond melee down the shank as well.

 

[minousbijoux]

love those bezels

 

[minousbijoux]

Oh and LOVE your demantoid!

 

[Marlow]

Love the demantoid - round, top size and super color for a namibian!!!

Be careful with this stone - difficult to replace - many namibian are grayish or muddy - yours is again very good!!!!

 

[pregcurious]

I love the garnet combo.

 

[iLander]

Gorgeous stone!

Does this mysterious faceter have a web site?

If not, why the heck not?

Who is this person?

 

[Starzin]

I also found this variation with bezels which is quite striking. I like the mix of metals too. I think it may run a slight risk of looking like bug antennae with round stones though...

I really like this because the three bands are unusual for a bypass. You could avoid the bug look by offsetting them a little more.

And I agree with iLander - if you're going to post his pics, give as link and spread the love

ETA: Oops! I was talking about the jeweller.

 

[T L]

I think the bezels in the necklace are a bit too thick and overwhelming for smaller stones (2 carats and below). They're fine for larger gems, but as for bezeling, I would use a much thinner delicate bezel around the two stones in question, if you're planning to bezel them. You also don't want to cover up much of the crown, as bezels can make a stone look smaller. I personally prefer bezels on cabochons, and larger gems, unless they're very thin and delicate.

This is an example of very fine bezel work. Notice how thin and even the bezel is. There metal isn't very lumpy or thicker in other places as well.

 

[IS_EDS]

InToTheMystic,
i just want to say I love the combination of the blue and green stones you posted. I can imagine this demantoid with 2 smaller blue pears as side stones.

 

[IS_EDS]

A layout like this one (I manipulated your picture).

 

[T L]

It's up to you, but I prefer the combination of a warm and cool stone together, than two warm stones (ie, pink and orange), or two cool stones (green and blue). I think when two warm or two cool stones are set together, they take focus away from one another. When you set a green and an orange stone together though, they both pop.

JMO, and I'm sure others beg to differ. I really love your demantoid with the spessartite. I have a bypass ring myself with a tsavorite and a spessartite, and they both pop. It's a really lovely combination.

 

[IS_EDS]

TL,
I see what you are saying about combining colors. You are likely right on this.

InToTheMystic,
does the cutter/faceter from whom you bought the stone have a website?

 

[JewelFreak]

I played with Photoshop to see how some ideas would work.

This original ring had 3 diamonds so there's a little extra room in it. I'm not handy enough with Photoshop to put bezels on the stones, so you'll have to imagine them. They could be haloed too, actually.


Here's the one I like -- kind of a quick & dirty job of making pear bezels into round ones. I wouldn't mind having this ring at all!!

 

[Marlow]

This demantoid screams spessartine!!!

 

[marcy]

It looks likes beautiful gem with a great color.

 

[InToTheMystic]

Sorry for the delayed reply guys - different time zone, and I have a 7wk old bub who is demanding a lot of time at the moment! Some great advice and ideas in here though. Thanks so much!

The faceter's name is Allen Beasley (brief blurb about him on here, about 3/4 of the way down the page: http://mineshaft.com.au/about/meet-the-team/), and he doesn't have a website for his work, unfortunately. He describes himself as an enthusiastic amateur who does this for love of the art. Lovely lovely man though and often travels around to the various global gem shows to pick up rough to work with.

This is an appalling picture that I snapped with my phone, but here are some of the other goodies that he had been playing with lately that he wanted to show me (note these are in Australian dollars). The Spess cushion in the middle is from the same batch of rough as my portugese round and has an incredible colour for Nigerian material. The princess cut rhodolite down the bottom is one of the nicest I have ever seen as well - a rich pure pink that doesn't brown out at all, and the big blue round indicolite was really unusual as well. He also had a stunning round brilliant cut grossular garnet that was completely colourless, which I was very intrigued by, but I'm still primarily drawn to bright colours. I snatched up the demantoid before it actually made it to the display tray



And understood about the thickness of the bezels. I posted that more to show the jeweller's familiarity with working with soft stones, rather than as an example of delicate bezelling I probably should have been clearer about that. I haven't 100% decided to go with this fellow, or whether I'm going to give another jeweller in town a go. Being in Australia, I'm a little uncertain about sending things away overseas. I've always had the best experiences working with someone where I can see the actual progress in the workshop myself. Is there anyone who would be a good fit for this sort of job? It has a more modern bent than the standard solitaires or diamond halo structures that most jewellers work with.

I'm liking the idea of a band that wraps around the finger at different levels (sort of like a half-spiral), rather than one that is a fixed band with two round 'bits' sticking off of it. Like this, but with more overlap between the ends so it doesn't look like my finger is too fat for it to make it all the way around!



Perhaps a halo or bezel around the stones (milgrained? hmm...), and then some small diamond melee extending down the visible front facing parts of the spiral shank. I'm definitely intrigued by the thought of doing mixed metals as well - perhaps yellow gold for the spess spiral and bezel, and white gold or platinum for the demantoid. I'd be worried that yellow gold on the demantoid would bring out yellow tones that I'm trying to avoid, however I'm not sure what that would do to the structural integrity of the piece.

 

[T L]

If doing mixed metals, I would do rose gold around the demantoid, as it will make the green pop more than in white metal. Rose gold also helps to drown out yellow undertones, and bring out more of the blue in a green stone. Yellow gold would be nice around the spessartite.

 

[Starzin]

Thanks for the link - I've just spent a happy hour perusing the Mineshaft site

I love JewelFreak's second mockup most but also your last idea if you want to go with a simpler design - and I agree with more overlap.

 

[InToTheMystic]

Thanks for the link - I've just spent a happy hour perusing the Mineshaft site

I love JewelFreak's second mockup most but also your last idea if you want to go with a simpler design - and I agree with more overlap.

Yeah, the owner's life story makes for an... um... entertaining read! He's definitely not afraid to put it all out there. I lost a few hours to it myself once!

And JewelFreak's mock ups were great - definitely helped me get an idea on what it could look like (thanks JF!). I'm not quite adept enough with photo editing to turn them from pear to round myself, but here's what it could look like with melee involved as well. Not sure about the split shank though.



Definite ideas forming now

 

[InToTheMystic]

Actually, the more I look at that picture, the more I like the idea of having the diamond halo remain in that leaf/pear shape, with the round stone set inside, rather than having a round halo. It makes it look a bit sleeker somehow. I imagine it would be easy enough to just put a few extra teeny diamonds in to the gap to fill it.

 

[T L]

Actually, the more I look at that picture, the more I like the idea of having the diamond halo remain in that leaf/pear shape, with the round stone set inside, rather than having a round halo. It makes it look a bit sleeker somehow. I imagine it would be easy enough to just put a few extra teeny diamonds in to the gap to fill it.

I love halos. You can never go wrong with halos, and it's a bypass halo ring, so it's not a typical halo.

 

[chrono]

I love your new demantoid! The colour is lovely as is the cut. Although I like a green and orange colour combination, the two you have aren't speaking to me. By this, I am not saying I don't like your spessartite. I think the spess is a lovely colour but its particular hue doesn't go well with your demantoid to my eye. I find that the zircon brings out the blue of your demantoid better than the spessartite.

 

[Starzin]

Slight hijack...
TL I keep seeing your pink diamonds in one of these bypass designs