Your predictions on too good to be true spinel on e-bay?

[velouriaL]

So I just bought a spinel on e-bay for $28...

It''s 1.25 ct, 6.7 mm round "ceylon red" spinel that is listed as "eye clean-- excellent" from a seller with a good feedback record.

Now, I''m fully expecting to get what I pay for (that is, a $28 stone... not a $280 stone for $2, and since it was very inexpensive, I decided to just see....

So what are your predictions? Will this stone be included? Windowed? Otherwise poorly cut? How bad do you think it will be and for what reasons?


Spinel Auction

(Valeria, my ALMOST namesake, I''m looking at you from some input!)

 

[chrono]

Probably poorly cut with colour zoning.
The stone might have black/grey undertones.
Perhaps some windowing in certain areas of the stone.
Chipped.

Who knows?

 

[Matata]

From the photograph, it has large areas of extinction. And on my monitor it looks more raspberry than red. I hope you''ll post pictures when you receive it.

 

[MJO]

Hello,

My guess is the tone is dark. The other stones they are selling are the key. Compare the tone of them to the one you are bidding on. If it looks darker in most area''s than the other stones listed, the light isn''t reflecting back through all of the stone. I can''t tell if the stone is windowed because I can''t see the bottom of the stone due to how dark it is. My guess is it is pretty clean because his descriptioin says so. My guess is with his good feedback that his descriptions are correct, but he doesn''t mention tone.

 

[velouriaL]

I actually don''t mind that it''s sort of raspberry color... I hope that it is, in fact, even if it''s not as sought after. If it''s not TOO dark, it might actally look nice... I''ll post pictures when I get it.

Matata- What is extinction?

 

[Matata]

Extinction are dark nonreflective areas; I''m not sure what the cause is. When I was searching for my spinel, I saw a few that had areas of extinction that marred an otherwise pretty stone -- in the ones I saw, the darkness was caused by poor cut. Remember that our impressions of your stone are based on one photo and not a particularly good photo.

 

[velouriaL]

UPDATE!

Well, my spinel came already-- plus points for the seller, who incidentally, was very prompt at e-mailing me back about other stones and was very nice and up-front about everything.

No pictures yet... I tried to take a coupld of quick ones and it came out looking terrible... much less representative than the seller''s picture.

Anyway, the spinel isn''t bad... no windows, and the cut look good to my eye (all the facets like up well, good symmetry) and the depth is nice.

The color is a dark raspberry...which is what I was expecting. I love stones like sapphires and spinels that come in every color! If this were a corrundum, it would be a fancy sapphire, not a ruby, which is fine.

The only thing is, it is pretty dark. When the light hits in the right way, it ''s pretty sparkly, but otherwise it looks a little dead. Don''t know if this is because of a bad cut (even though externally it looks nice) or extinctions (which I just learned about.)

Not a fantastic stone, but not a waste of $30, either.

 

[MJO]

Hi velouriaL,

It isn't the cut it's the material itself that is a little dark. If it were tourmaline or sapphire it would be heat treated to lighten the tone but spinel can't be heat treated. The darker colors need more light to look better. Wear it out doors in the sun.

I had an 8ct tsavorite that was dark in tone. I sent it to Wink to have Richard Homer recut it with concave facets. The stone came back still dark. Sometimes the best cutter in the world can't do much if the material isn't up to it.

 

[Richard M.]

Date: 11/8/2004 3:52:32 PM
Author: MJO



It isn''t the cut it''s the material itself that is a little dark.




A lot of gems occur in tones that are too dark to cut bright stones. Learning to inspect gem rough in reflected, not transmitted light to judge color is one of the toughest lessons a would-be cutter faces. There''s always the temptation to hope proper cutting will brighten a dark gem. It won''t. I have nice parcel of very dark blue spinel rough that will probably never cut anything but inky stones. But I''m going to cut one soon just to find out -- hope wins out again! One trick is to deliberately window the stone to allow more light through but that destroys brilliance. It''s not nice when Mother Nature fools us!

Richard M.

 

[MJO]

Hello Richard M.

I have learned that the hard way and bought many a stone that was partially described with ony the good points like clarity and color. Then they flood the stone with light to make it look brighter this way they are accuratly describing the stone and it looks great. I have now learned to email and ask more questions and not just hope it is what I think it is.

 

[velouriaL]

The thing with this particular dark spinel is that it looks very nice at night my lamp light... very sparkly... but in daylight, it doesn''t look as good...

What causes that?

 

[strmrdr]

Date: 11/10/2004 10:59:31 AM
Author: velouriaL
The thing with this particular dark spinel is that it looks very nice at night my lamp light... very sparkly... but in daylight, it doesn''t look as good...

What causes that?

contrast mostly.

Most of the light return will be around the edges and in sunlight the bright edges make the center look even darker.

I like dark stones. They have a sence of mystery that more even colored stones dont.

My favorite are the garnets that look black but hit them with bright light and they blaze fire red.

 

[MJO]

My guess that it looks better at night is that incandesent light has more red than natural sunlight or florecent lighting. Since the spinel is red there is more pure red reflected from the stone. But this is just a guess.