In that case, your best bet is to try Palagems. To get something straight red that isn''t too dark in tone and little extinction is major moolah. Burmese is usually the nicest but not necessarily so. Sometimes an unsually pure red Vietnamese stone can be found but that will be rather uncommon as well.Date: 12/1/2009 4:56:13 PM
Author: crasru
Well, actually I am looking for a bright-red spinel, with no blue or purple secondary tones. Someone posted similar stone in e-rings. Was looking for Burmese because I do not know much about Mahende spinel; is it worth looking for? Precision cut OK but not necessary. Round or cushion cut is the best.
Would you recommend Mahende or should I stick with Burmese one?
Date: 12/1/2009 9:00:32 PM
Author: Chrono
Ohh...Liane, so you bought the 3.11 ct step cut emerald? I can''t wait to see your pictures.
How''s the colour saturation on the emerald cut Liane? As you know from my other thread I''m getting the smaller one.Date: 12/2/2009 4:43:38 AM
Author: Liane
Date: 12/1/2009 9:00:32 PM
Author: Chrono
Ohh...Liane, so you bought the 3.11 ct step cut emerald? I can''t wait to see your pictures.
Not... exactly.
I bought a tsavorite from them a couple of weeks ago. There was a mixup with the parcels and I mistakenly ended up with the 3.11 emerald-cut spinel instead of the cushion tsav that I actually bought. I''ve advised Eric of the mistake and I''ll be sending the spinel to its actual owner (hopefully in exchange for my tsav!) as soon as I get that information. In the meantime I''m just admiring the spinel since I have it lying around anyway. Not my style at all (I don''t really go for emerald cuts or this particular shade of pink-red), but it''s a completely beautiful stone and whoever bought it is a very lucky person. I''d never seen a top Mahenge in person so I count this as a fortuitous mistake for giving me that opportunity.
I hope so too, but I think the larger one is the better one, I hesitated as I blew my gem budget like a couple of months ago. However, I do like the lines of the smaller one more.Date: 12/2/2009 5:43:02 AM
Author: Liane
The color saturation is phenomenal. Everything about this stone is pretty much perfect. The cut is excellent, the clarity is superb (I can''t find a single flaw after louping it obsessively with a 30x for... well... a lot of time, let''s just put it that way), and the color just glows in every kind of lighting. I took this stone in to my local colored-gems specialist and he was in awe at the spinel''s quality. ID''ed it immediately as a superb Mahenge from the first glance at like five feet away.
So basically what I am saying is that if the Swala spinel you''re looking at is remotely like this one, you want to grab that sucker yesterday.
Since you''re sitting on it, you might as well take some photos to um, help educate the rest of us about what a top-grade Mahenge spinel looks like.Date: 12/2/2009 5:43:02 AM
Author: Liane
The color saturation is phenomenal. Everything about this stone is pretty much perfect. The cut is excellent, the clarity is superb (I can''t find a single flaw after louping it obsessively with a 30x for... well... a lot of time, let''s just put it that way), and the color just glows in every kind of lighting. I took this stone in to my local colored-gems specialist and he was in awe at the spinel''s quality. ID''ed it immediately as a superb Mahenge from the first glance at like five feet away.
So basically what I am saying is that if the Swala spinel you''re looking at is remotely like this one, you want to grab that sucker yesterday.