At it again.... and question!?

[FallenRox]

I bought a new spinel yesterday, and it won't be here for a few weeks. It might be awful, it's another one of those risky ebay buys, but I like the adventure, so I'm ok with that. It's a shade of red, about 4 carats and antique cut. If I don't send it back, I'm going to want to set it with a mix of some loose 3mm round diamonds that I have (12 of them) OR I'm thinking of using 3mm black spinel.

The design for the ring is swirling in my head and I need to have my man draw it yet, but he's yelling about how our wedding bands aren't done yet and I've bought yet another stone. oops!

My question- is it really as easy as spending $3.00 on ebay for the spinel rounds? They seem to be easy to get and you can't see through them, so I feel like it's ok, but haven't done it before so thought I'd ask. How much quality variance can there be in the little guys?

Thank you kindly for your guidance

 

[minousbijoux]

For little ones like that I would be more concerned about whether they were actually spinels or whether they were synthetic. A dishonest seller might think that no one would bother to test $3 stones so they could get away with junk.

 

[FallenRox]

Ahhh, true.

I still have the contact info for Doug at Bespoke. He's the only one that comes to mind for black spinel but I'm not sure if this is a common request or too petty for him or other ~known~ spinel vendors to deal with? Guess it won't hurt to ask. Thank you for answering

 

[chrono]

It is highly unlikely for any lapidary to carry melee sized stones. I've seen Multicolour, Awesomegems and sometimes Mineralminers carry melees of varying quality.

 

[FallenRox]

Thank you for those! I really appreciate it

 

[justginger]

If you want to get in touch with Doug, do it quickly - he's leaving on a 6 month adventure very shortly!

 

[T L]

JTV.com carries tons of black spinel melee, mostly in inexpensive silver jewelry, but you can have them removed. I wouldn't worry too much about precision cutting on tiny black melee.

 

[FallenRox]

Thanks! I got the stone last week and have to take him to my new favorite jeweler to make sure it's authentic.
I did the "at home testing" but I know not to trust that. It sure is pretty though! I will try to get some pictures
but it seems silly to post them if I'm not even sure it's real. - I'm skeptical, what can I say.

*fingers crossed*