Kornerupine question

[Translucent]

Hello all,

Just recieved a lovely square kornerupine that was stuffed into my Xmas stocking. Such a neat stone.
Very sparkly and mysterious green/grey/brown colour!

It''''s too soft for a ring setting. What else can I do with it? Anybody know what kind of complementary
stones I can use? What''''s the most probable place this stone comes from?

Thanks

 

[Translucent]

OOOpps, wrong forum! Can someone move me to the coloured stone one.

 

[Lorelei]

The moderators will move it for you when they are able

Good luck with the stone.

 

[Richard M.]

Apart from having a weird almost unpronounceable name, kornerupine can be attractive. It occurs as colorless, green, brown and purple, and some can be cut as cat''s-eyes. Its hardness is 6.5 and it has moderate brilliance (R.I. 1.66). It''s moderately brittle.

The majority of material on today''s market comes either from Sri Lanka or Africa (both east Africa and Madagascar).

 

[Edward Bristol]

What a nice surprise! Especially since kornerupine is really unusual.

I have an eye on them for a while and managed to get a few into my stock.

Once the big run on fancy hot colors is gone, we might see more of those hues and also the mellow tourmaline colors (which would be fitting to your stone, maybe)

I had just written a new page about Sri Lanka''s semiprecious and their photos where I also mention kornerupine in the second half (I hope that this link is OK with the forum rules).

Edward Bristol
www.wildfishgems.com

 

[valeria101]

Date: 1/5/2006 4:15:17 AM
Author: Edward Bristol

What a nice surprise! Especially since kornerupine is really unusual.

Second that - quite an unusual choice of stocking stuffer.

The rusty autumn colors look fantastic on yellow gold (thinking of some matte finish bezel) - well, for me at least.

How does it look? From your description, I would pic violet as matching color... but what if a more unusual Kornerupine color would work ?

Is it remotely appealing to try out design options around here pictures in hand ?

 

[Edward Bristol]

Yellow gold - very fine, but violet?

I''d rather go with some mild orange (e.g. from a hessonite) or a bi-colored tourmaline (orange/brown)

Edward Bristol
www.wildfishgems.com

 

[valeria101]

Date: 1/5/2006 4:40:00 AM
Author: Edward Bristol

Yellow gold - very fine, but violet?

Hm... well, I took the word ''complementary'' too literally. The bright yellow/orange would certainly match the gold color and liven up the piece

 

[daniil]

Hi Edward, very nice overview of semiprecious stones. I was looking on kornerupine for sometime now but the only one I found are brownish-green. I saw a picture of a very nice bright pure green/ maybe slightly yellowish-green kornerupine in Schumann''s book Gemstones of the World but did not see any stone of that color for sale. Do you know where can I find kornerupine of more pure green? I read that kornerupine is found in few places including Sri Lanka, Madagascar, Tanzania, Burma, and even Canada. Are any of these localities known for better green?

Tanks, Daniil.

 

[Edward Bristol]

Daniil,

I think Sri Lanka is the right place to look.
From those kornerupine I have seen, ours are the ''greenest''.

Edward Bristol
www.wildfishgems.com

 

[Hest88]

Nice article, Edward. Thanks so much!

 

[Edward Bristol]

Appretiate your positive feed-back. Thanks.
I am working on a similar page for the various sapphire colors in Sri Lanka.

Edward Bristol
www.wildfishgems.com