Padparadscha color spinel

[TKC]

Any of you have ever seen Padparadscha color spinel? I have one that may be similar color to Padparadscha sapphire. The color is pinkish orange. How do you guys think?

 

[spinel]

Very nice! Padparadscha-color spinel is very rare, specifically that color of your stone.
Is it for sale?

 

[BWise]

It''s pretty. I like that color. It looks lighter on spinels than on sapphires.

 

[Edward Bristol]

A bit more pink would be perfect.

 

[TKC]

I like it so much. The color is so bright. I try to find spinesl on many websites that have similar color with mine, but I could not find any. It is not for sale. I like collecting unusual colored stones especially sapphires, rubies and spinels. The spinel size is quite big for that color, about 1.75 carats. How much do you think this kind of spinel is worth? Any idea?

 

[pad3006]

Hi;
That is a gorgous stone. Congrads.
I dont know if you have it mounted as a ring but i have heard they are hard and dont get damaged too easily, have you found that to be true? thanks

Phil

 

[TKC]

Thanks. If I want to have it mounted, I will mount it as a pendant. Spinels are durable stone, but still not as hard as sapphires or rubies. It is still too risky (I mean easily to get scratches) to mount it as a ring. I will use either a sapphire, ruby or diamond for a ring. This is just my opinion.

 

[belle]

nice color!

 

[Art Nouveau]

I love the color. It''s certainly a rare find and you are very lucky to have this stone. Since this color is so unusal for a spinel, how does the price per carat compare to a ''ruby'' red spinel? Also curious about the color difference between the top and bottom parts of the stone. Since spinel is a single refractive stone, is it unusual for it to show dichroism? Is this caused by uneven distribution of impurities?

 

[TKC]

I don''t know about spinel prices. I will take and send some more pictures tomorrow. It is late night (early morning) here. I am so sleepy

I will talk to you guys again tomorrow..........

 

[TKC]

Here are some pictures of the stone from the pavilon side.

 

[TKC]

Oooops here is another one

 

[Sagebrush]

Fits the definition perfectly. I have a carat size padparadsha sapphire that could be its baby brother (or sister)!

 

[valeria101]

Wonderful!

... and it can surely be a ring stone if you so wish. There is a nominal difference between ruby/sapphire and spinel hardness, but not enough for any practical considerations.

 

[Edward Bristol]

Spinel is tough. so don''t worry about setting it.

Price for this pad-color in 1.5-2.0 ct. and moderalety (?pic? is it?) included, I would suggest $ 500-700 per carat.

generally spinel has become expensive. Burma anyhow always, but also ceylon.

even dark blue, purple or lavender comes up to 150/carat here. for good blue, pink and red you''ll be easily asked 300-500. (2-4 ct). and to be honest they deserve it.

The miners actually try more and more to sell them on the same level as sapphire. it is amazing how fast these guys, who can''t read or write, smell international prices going up.

unfortunately with increasing value they have also started to cook and treat them. it used to be said spinel are not treated. but thats not true anymore.

Edward Bristol
www.wildfishgems.com

 

[Richard M.]

Date: 5/28/2005 10:44:08 PM
Author: Edward Bristol

unfortunately with increasing value they have also started to cook and treat them. it used to be said spinel are not treated. but thats not true anymore.


Edward Bristol

Interesting comments Edward. I''m especially intrigued by your suggestions about spinel treatments. Can you post any specifics or point to a source for more data?

Thanks,
Richard M.

 

[TKC]

Here is another look of my stone from the pavilion. On this picture (I think the picture is large enough) you can see the clarity of the stone. I don''t know if it is considered moderately included. How do you guys think about the clarity?

 

[Edward Bristol]

I''ve heard of heat used on pink and blue from a dealer in colombo and from my lapidary. I trried to find out more, but...
as usual its all very secret and there is not much information let alone reliable sources, so, may be its true, may be not.

Is there anybody who can say whether it makes sense to heat spinel?

 

[mogok]

Hello,

Well it is several times I heard about possible heat treatment for spinels. The last in date was one of my students at AIGS synthetic and treatment class that told me that his company was doing such spinel treatment. He told me that the treatment result was cleaner and brighter gems. Of course I was interested to learn more about. He promissed me to bring me some stones to study, but he never did it...

An other interesting point is that I''ve never seen any suspicious looking inclusion in spinel that could bring me to think that the stone has been processed by heat. It does not mean of course that the stones were not heat treated at low temperature, but I believe that if there is a treatment it just does not bring any spectacular improvement. If it was fine spinels would be more easy to find but its not the case.
Top color and good clarity spinels that are valuable gems are very rare gems and I simply today dont believe really that there is anybody now doing an effective treatment on spinels. Of course people have possibly tried some way to treat them and some spinels have been seen with some fracture filling. To my current knowledge this last treatment is the only treatment currently available on spinel and it is not very common.

All the best,

 

[Edward Bristol]

Thanks for the support, Vincent. I was afraid I spread rumors.

Meanwhile I called the guy who said they treat blue and pink spinels.

He confirmed again, but he didn''t want to say more than the usual "improve color".

So we will not know untill someone takes time and effort to really find out. Yet, with spinel becoming more and more popular this is not too unlikely.

 

[mogok]

Hello Edward,
Well it is possible that some people are performing some kind of heat treatment on spinels, the same way people were perfeorming heat treatment for sapphires with a flame for few minutes years ago when heat treatment was not at all a consern for the trade. Treatment using heat become a consern when the color or clarity improvement is dramatic and able to turn stones that were before seen as junk into gems...
I dont think that there is currently such treatment for spinels, but probably some people in secret are performing some heat treatment on their spinels. Again I have never really seen anything suspicous in the spinels I''ve studied (mainly in Burma) but I''ve heard about people doing some treatment in their Burmese spinels in Thailand. Probably it could be interesting to study the subject more in depth, but I dont think that currently there is anything alarming compared to the things we can see on diamonds, ruby, emerald, jade, pearls and sapphire.
All the best,

 

[MJO]

I have heard that only blue spinels are treated. I think it is a BE treatment if I''m not mistaken.

 

[spinel]

Hello Vincent, Edward and All,
I personally have seen low-temperature heated red spinels! The heat treatment is used by crooks that is not aimed to improve the stone quality or color but to get them have a more reminiscent look of a high-quality ruby and sell them to amateurs at the price of ruby.

 

[TKC]

Hi Richard, when you say that your padparadscha sapphire could be its baby brother or sister, do you mean that your sapphire color similar to my spinel? I have a sapphire that may have the color of padparadscha (I am not sure). Here is the picture. It weights 0.96 carat. I sent this sapphire to the AGTA lab. The result is that they were not able to determine the treatment, they did not even issue any report. Usually if they are not sure with the treatment, they will still issue a report saying " a further analyses using SIMS is required ....." on the comments section. They just say "still on research" (I believe) on the receipt. It seems that this sapphire has a patch (I believe glass fill) on its pavilion, but the patch is small (not deep and not large). I guess the cutter tried to retain the depth of its pavilion. It has a window. In my opinion is that AGTA was not able to determine the treatment because if it is a Be-treated sapphire, why it need to be patched/filled with glass

. It can still be recut in order to remove the patch, or just remove it with acid or something and may still weigh over at least .80 carat I believe. Any opinion from you guys

? What is the cost for a sapphire with the color like mine if it is heated only? Any suggestion

?

 

[TKC]

Here is the pavilion picture.

 

[TKC]

I circled the patch to show where it is located.