Need hepl!

[Quandoflu]

My girlfriend and I recently got engaged and we are set to be married in March. Now, I would like to get her something for a wedding present that she can wear with her dress. She is looking for a necklace to wear and I think this would be the perfect gift.

Our colors are white and Apple red. I looked at some rubies (her birthstone), but they look like the face up light red to pinkish (unless I get into the burma rubies which seemed a touch darker and much more expensive)... anyway. I would like to get her a neck lace, preferably in the 3-5ct range. Set in white gold. I would like to do my best to keep it around $500. I liked the look, in one of the other threads, of a Trillion hanging point down, but wanted to see what some of the great imaginative minds on here thought... specially since there may be some stones that I don''t know about that could be just as beautiful if not more.

Thank you for any help

Jeremy

 

[DiamondExpert]

Ruby is probably not for consideration in this size/price range, but you may be able to find a rubellite tourmaline that would work.

Spinel would probably also be over your budget in 3-5ct.

Good luck!

 

[elmo]

How about Chatham or Ramaura? Sorry it has to be synthetic, but it might look pretty darned good!

 

[valeria101]

Date: 12/27/2005 2:04:28 PM
Author:Quandoflu

... wanted to see [if] there may be some stones that I don't know about that could be just as beautiful if not more.

With total disregard for the budget...

I usually kep up with stock updates at a few shops (places I've either bought from, or heard good feedback of... anyway, sort of random.) and two red things turned up relateively recently:

A pear shape red spinel: LINK 3 cts, promissing color and $2k

And a huge redish spessartite garnet which reminds me of the dark orange-red African rubies (now sort of extinct): LINK 10 cts , 1k. Spesartite is usually allot more expensive than this - but that goes for the 'mandarin' orange color. The reddish are less, as it shows here. Which doesn't mean the stones are less bright or attractive. There are simply many more red than orange garnets to choose from.


These are the pictures from down the previous links:

(obviously not to scale - the garnet should be allot larger, relatively).


There are a couple of other reds I didn't look up examples for: Zircon (rare, mostly dark and orange tinged - beautiful red ones are very rare, but quite memorable) and Opal (the red Mexican opal, sometimes called 'cherry' or 'fire' opal; like this) and sunstone (some is red, a new source of red feldspar brought some stryking red stones recently).


Without much searching: a red zircon - nothing too special though (PS. I don't remember for some reason if the red zircons are 'high' or 'low' metamict zircon - the first kind is brighter). There must be better, even online.

Red 'Andesine' feldspar made a few waves recently and for all the good reasons: color! The picture below comes from Pala International:

If you want a gem with a story, this may do that. You may find some notes about how this material competes with the previous sources of red sunstone debated among a couple of sellers and gemologists HERE(Oregon would be more expensive - or at least it was when Andesine came out).


Chances are a few red stones have been ommited (not to count a few types of red garnet of lesser fame than Rhodolite), but probbably nothing too common or feasible in the size mentioned (red beryl? there may be none available at all! etc.).


My 2c

 

[Quandoflu]

Thank you for the idea''s Ana. I will look into the stones. I know that I am not looking for some high dollar stuff atm. I would love to drop a couple grand on this but with all the costs of the wedding that will be a touch impossible. She had mentioned to me that she was just going to try and find some costume jewelry for the wedding, but I told her no, and that I would find her something that would more suiting. Hence my searches

This is the stone that I had originally found on AJS- 5.78cts and looks to be a nice dark red...

Though, now that I saw the pears and the leaf... I am in a state of confusion as to which direction to go.