What stone is this???

[micheleg]

Hello Everyone.
I bought this ring from HSN last year. It was listed as a teal garnet.. (which i never heard of, and was curious to see what it would look like???? ) So i bought the ring.. It wasnt cheap, so im assuming its real. (I think i paid 200.00. )
Anyways... I get it home and in the sunlight it was a beautiful turquoise blue. Well i get up the next morning and put it on, and it was dark blue almost sapphire like..
(im trying to post a pic, but the flash is killing the color change)
The stones are very pretty and seem of great quality, but i have no idea what they sent me :O.
Anyone have any clues??

Michele

 

[valeria101]

Blue garnet is a good cousin of the blue moon - there isn''t any on record ! Unless this one is a syntetic material...

Does the ring come with some description of what the stone is? "Teal garnet" should be a commercial denomination.

 

[chantal990]

Sorry I have never heard of blue garnet but it soounds like a gorgeous ring anyway. Can you post pictures?

 

[micheleg]

Thanks for the input... Nope it came with nothing, just the invoice that says teal garnets. It truly is a good ring, and ill have to fess up that it was originally over 200.00 but when i snagged it it was 79.00 on clearance... . so whatever it is, i dont mind becuase i got it so cheap.
Maybe ill bring it to a jeweler and see what they say!!!!

 

[micheleg]

Thanks, My husband has been trying to capture the color of both colors but cant. he thinks if we do one picture in sunlight it might work!!!! when we get a sunny day, i''ll get a pic..

Michele

 

[MJO]

Michele,

There was a find of color change garnets from Madagascar that changed from blue/green to an amethyst purple/red. Most stones are under 1ct because they ones found were small and very dark in larger sizes. These discovery was short lived and I can''t find anymore. I did buy a tennis bracelet of them that is very interesting.

 

[Richard M.]

Color-change garnets displaying hues similar to your description were found several years ago near Bekily, Madagascar. As far as I know they are scarce and high priced and I wouldn''t expect them to be sold on HSN. The ones I''ve seen had a much higher wholesale price than you paid retail. If what you have is indeed a natural garnet it is rare and very much worth the minor cost of having a gemologist identify it. Be aware that there are many different color change "gems" being sold on TV these days including glass.

 

[micheleg]

Thanks, these stones arent huge, but they are decent size. There are 18 of them total. (the ring style is a flower) there is also a darker stone in the middle.. that one is more like an accent stone. The stones themselves have a greAT luster and clarity.....thats why i am doubting they are fake or lab created I havent seen any other color change besides the 3 shades of blue. Also the ring has 3 tiny diamonds on each side.. these were listed as real and they too look really nice and clear.
As a gem collector, Im really baffled on this one!!!

Michele

 

[valeria101]

Date: 12/6/2004 11:38:19 PM
Author: Richard M.
Color-change garnets displaying hues similar to your description were found several years ago near Bekily, Madagascar

The picture below shows an optimistic side on the type of garnet you mention... unless I only got to see only the really crappy ones. Lighter colors seemd nicer, but the change was lost on the light rough I remember. Do these get much better ?

 

[Richard M.]

I don''t have images of the Bekily garnets a Los Angeles gem dealer showed me several years ago but the colors were bright slightly greenish blue, changing to a darker and muddier blue hue as I recall. Others were darkish blue in all lighting conditions and he claimed them as true blue garnets. He was asking $500 to $1,000 a carat wholesale depending on size/quality. He had very few of them and they represented a very tiny proportion of the color change stones from Madagascar.

Color change garnets sometimes showing blue as one of the colors have been found in Madagascar, Sri Lanka and Tanzania.

Generally the Madagascar material goes from a raspberry red to a bluish grey. Tanzanian stones change from a raspberry red to a teal blue color. Sri Lankan gems change from reddish purple in incandescent to blue, green or gray in daylight, and the best can look very much like the old Brazilian alexandrite. The blue position doesn''t look like top blue sapphire but more steely like blue spinel or Montana sapphire. The red color side of these garnets is typically the strongest, the blue/green side is the weakest.

Richard M.

 

[Richard Sherwood]

That, my dear Ana, is a gem. Wow.

Richard, I appreciated the description on the color change garnets from different countries. It went straight in my c.c.g. file.