That was unexpected...

[InToTheMystic]

What do you do when you don't really like warm colours, rounds, or Portuguese cuts?

Well apparently you go out to the shops and come home with a round Portuguese cut spessartite garnet, and a heliodor! Huh... I guess all those lovely recent spess threads have been having a subliminal impact on me!

I popped out today to get a haircut, and before heading in I did my normal detour past my local gemshop (it's in the same shopping centre), where I spotted a spess in the window. Not normally being a fan of orange I kept walking and headed in to my appointment, but kept thinking about the little sunshiney darling the whole time. And when I got out, I found myself back with my nose pressed against the glass again. I don't know if its an Australian scarcity thing, but I've never actually seen a decent spess in person. They're really quite fascinating!

I spoke to the vendors for a bit and learned that their resident cutter has been doing some lovely precision faceting work lately, so they thought they'd show them off in the front window for a bit. Brilliant tactic, I say. I couldn't leave the spess behind knowing that I'd kick myself for ages if I came back and it was gone. I also fell in love with the cutting on a sweet little golden beryl/heliodor, so that came home with me as well (it was pretty cheap, and I have a plan to pair it with my zircon on my pendant project)

So, some stats:

Spessartite Garnet
Nigeria
2.4ct / 7.7mm
It has some whispy little inclusions, but you have to squint and angle it juuuust right in order to see them. I suspect the busy cut helps detract from them somewhat. It is a rich orange, tending towards yellow rather than red, but has no brown in at all. It was labelled as 'Fanta garnet', but I don't know about that. I think it is a bit pale for that sort of title.

Golden Beryl/Heliodor
Brazil
1.9ct / 9x7mm
Eye clean, and couldn't spot anything when we louped it at the bench. It is a lovely warm soft gold, with no grey or brown. The step cut is quite stunning as well. Neither stone is treated in any way.

And pics! They're taken with a camera phone so the quality isn't fab, but the colour of the stones is reasonably accurate. It looks like there is brown in them though, which you can't see in real life. My skin looks kind of weirdly blue, but it's a cold day here. Who knows.





...and some solo pics to come...

 

[InToTheMystic]

The spess. It's quite the little fireball in the sun, but quite difficult to capture the sparks!

 

[InToTheMystic]

And the beryl...





And just for fun, here it is with my zircon. The colour combo seemed to work surprisingly well, so I'm having a bit of a play with options for my pendant.



I have no idea what I'll do with the spess. It wasn't exactly a planned purchase, so we'll have to wait and see what the brain ticks over towards!

 

[GliderPoss]

They are beautiful! I'm not an orange fan myself but you are right - it's a little blaze of sunshine. The Heliodor is lovely too. Do you mind if i ask the name & location of the gem shop? I never seem to find decent gems in mall retail stores...

 

[InToTheMystic]

They are beautiful! I'm not an orange fan myself but you are right - it's a little blaze of sunshine. The Heliodor is lovely too. Do you mind if i ask the name & location of the gem shop? I never seem to find decent gems in mall retail stores...

For sure, HotPozzum! I got these from Mineshaft, in the Canberra Centre - they specialise in opals and collectable mineral samples, but they have some lovely loose gemstones as well. The cutter is named Allan, and he does some beautiful work and travels all over the world sourcing stones. He'll also apparently hunt things down for you if needed, which is a bonus in Australia - I haven't found many people who have the facility to do so. He's in the shop on Saturdays if you want to talk to him. The owner, Peter, is lovely to deal with as well.

http://mineshaft.com.au/

Hope that helps

 

[InToTheMystic]

A few more of the spess. It seems to like playing under the LED lights.

(I just wish that brown would stop showing up in the photos - it's not at all present in person!)

 

[JewelFreak]

Wow! I need to find your hairdresser if that's the payoff! Great spess, I love the cutting. But the heliodor is my fave; I have a thing for them. So glad you gave us a peek at them both -- and your idea for a pendant is terrific!

--- Laurie

 

[InToTheMystic]

Thanks Laurie The heliodor surprised me as well, but it's a sweet little stone and has a gentle charm about it.

Here's another shot of the two potential pendant stones together.



I'm thinking maybe a yellow gold bezel for the beryl connecting to a swinging white gold bezel for the zircon? Not sure, will mock something up in photoshop at some point and see how it looks. All speculation at this point. I am leaning towards making it an enhancer rather than a fixed pendant, so I can wear it with some pearls as well.

 

[GliderPoss]

Ah ha I thought so! I bought my champagne zircon from Mineshaft a few years back when we lived in Canberra. Now we are in Melbourne & I haven't found ANY gem shops here

 

[InToTheMystic]

Ah ha I thought so! I bought my champagne zircon from Mineshaft a few years back when we lived in Canberra. Now we are in Melbourne & I haven't found ANY gem shops here

Heh, I had a look around last time I was in Melbourne and I couldn't find anything decent either! There's a couple of places in The Strand arcade in Sydney, but DANG they are expensive.

The loose stone range has improved a lot at Mineshaft in the last couple of years, as well as the cutting. There's still some giant windows on the more common quartzes that are cut for size rather than quality, etc, but they're easy enough to avoid.

Let me know if there's anything in particular that you're after and I can pop in and see if they have it, or if they can find it for you. They've got some lovely pale pink spinels in there at the moment, and a big juicy peach tourmaline that keeps catching my eye. No idea what I'd do with it though! They had heeeeaps of aquamarines as well - not top colour, but some decent sizes. They're stocking Welo opal beads at the moment, which are nice too.

The other place worth checking out in Canberra is McGlades, also in the Canberra Centre. They don't have their loose stones on display, but they have a decent collection behind the counter that they will happily show you. They actually had a Paraiba tourmaline there a few months ago that made my eyes bug out - never seen the true glow before, and probably never will again. They're pretty good at sourcing things as well.

 

[packrat]

So pretty! I love that heliodore-I have suuuuuch a soft spot for yellows.

 

[endless_summer]

Beautiful stones! The spess is definitely my favorite! I'm sure it just glows, and I'm glad that you got it when you did because I'm sure that it would have disappeared quite quickly!

 

[marymm]

Wow - gorgeous stones! I'm kinda jealous you can window-shop precision-cut gems on your way to the hair salon! I'm particularly drawn to the step-cut Heliodore (love me a well-cut yellow beryl) but your round Orange sunshine is also wonderful - great buys!

 

[T L]

Thanks Laurie The heliodor surprised me as well, but it's a sweet little stone and has a gentle charm about it.

Here's another shot of the two potential pendant stones together.



I'm thinking maybe a yellow gold bezel for the beryl connecting to a swinging white gold bezel for the zircon? Not sure, will mock something up in photoshop at some point and see how it looks. All speculation at this point. I am leaning towards making it an enhancer rather than a fixed pendant, so I can wear it with some pearls as well.

I think the zircon's color overpowers the delicate yellow of the heliodor. I wouldn't set them together. I think the heliodor would go better with the spessartite.

 

[dk168]

I like the yellow beryl and blue zircon combo, thanks for sharing!

DK

 

[GliderPoss]

Ah ha I thought so! I bought my champagne zircon from Mineshaft a few years back when we lived in Canberra. Now we are in Melbourne & I haven't found ANY gem shops here

Heh, I had a look around last time I was in Melbourne and I couldn't find anything decent either! There's a couple of places in The Strand arcade in Sydney, but DANG they are expensive.

The loose stone range has improved a lot at Mineshaft in the last couple of years, as well as the cutting. There's still some giant windows on the more common quartzes that are cut for size rather than quality, etc, but they're easy enough to avoid.

Let me know if there's anything in particular that you're after and I can pop in and see if they have it, or if they can find it for you. They've got some lovely pale pink spinels in there at the moment, and a big juicy peach tourmaline that keeps catching my eye. No idea what I'd do with it though! They had heeeeaps of aquamarines as well - not top colour, but some decent sizes. They're stocking Welo opal beads at the moment, which are nice too.

The other place worth checking out in Canberra is McGlades, also in the Canberra Centre. They don't have their loose stones on display, but they have a decent collection behind the counter that they will happily show you. They actually had a Paraiba tourmaline there a few months ago that made my eyes bug out - never seen the true glow before, and probably never will again. They're pretty good at sourcing things as well.

Thanks! Well if you ever see any 1ct+ emerald or asscher cut purple/lavendar spinels that are eye clean please let me know!

 

[VirginiaZee]

Those are lovely - and you found them on the way to the hairdresser? I wish I found such lovely beauties on the way to the hairdresser.

 

[InToTheMystic]

Those are lovely - and you found them on the way to the hairdresser? I wish I found such lovely beauties on the way to the hairdresser.

Ha, I make it sound a lot more blasé than it really is, I guess. It's such a pain to get things shipped over to here that you tend to cultivate a fairly keen sense of where you can see stones in person. This shop can be a little hit and miss for loose stones, but occasionally you can fluke it. The owner of the shop has his own opal mine, so that's really what they specialise in.

And HotPozzum, I'll keep an eye out. I know they had some nice oval medium purple spinels, in about the 1.5ct range, but I'll see if they have any other cuts next time I'm out that way. Our first bub is due in 2.5 weeks though, so my capacity to go sparkly hunting in person is going to be a bit curtailed for the next little while