Garnet

Experiment with photos

Photographing faceted gems has continued to frustrate me. I find it hard to get the camera to see what I see, especially the sparkle of the stones. Perhaps the only way to do that is with video where the reflections of the light change as the stone turns.

Anyway, yesterday, I conducted an experiment with my fairly new Pixel 6 cell phone. Most of the photos were pretty poor. I didn’t have the phone set in a tripod and would need more time than allotted to figure out the best positioning of stone, phone and lighting. But a couple of shots did surprise me with nice detailing of the facets and color.

First is a 2.58 carat peridot, cut in an 8 mm. octagon shape. The characteristic black disc shaped inclusion shows clearly in the photo. When the stone is held in hand it has such great sparkle that the inclusion is hard to find.

The second photo is of a 1.89 carat orange garnet. The color is very close to that of some “Madeira” citrines I had just cut as well.

 

 

One of these things is not like the others…

A lone medium-sized Ametrine with concave pavilion facets is surrounded by an assortment of small garnets. It being 2020, as the pandemic news continued to get worse through the summer and into the fall months, I found myself in a faceting slump.   I just could not get feeling creative enough to do justice to the great rough I had brought home from Tucson in February. So I started cutting simple, smaller, less costly pieces of garnet.

Since I have a soft spot for garnets there were plenty in the inventory. Some of them dated back to when I was just learning to facet and buying though the mail from advertisers in the back of Lapidary Journal. Thus some of the rough has been more to the learning-to-cut material rather than gem quality. Even then, garnets can often show all sorts of interesting inclusions when examined with the 10x loupe and still sparkle when held at a normal distance.

Normally, this time of year I would be making reservations for Tucson. Because the US has not brought COVID under control, I will not be going to Tucson in 2021. (At this point, we aren’t having our usual family gathering for Thanksgiving and Christmas is looking unlikely as well.) I guess I will keep working on small garnets for the next few months. Maybe if things are looking brighter by February, I will be inspired to start working on that 2020 stash.

Meanwhile, please stay safe folks. Listen to Dr. Fauci.

A Few African Garnets

Garnets are generally one of my favorite stones to facet. Usually they cooperate and take a nice polish without fighting back.  Sometimes they end up a bit too dark — a classic red that won’t sparkle.  Sometimes there are fine needle inclusions that make for a sleepy look to the stone.  Often they can contain interesting inclusions that are easily visible while the stone is on the dop and being examined with magnification but when finished, the inclusions are not a detriment to the overall appearance of the stone.  So while I was in Tucson, I could not resist picking up a few parcels of small African garnets.  As a balance to the larger (time consuming) pieces I was cutting using the fantasy machine, I dopped up a few of these for quick positive reinforcement.

This is a 1.30 carat garnet from Malawi which is 5.5 mm. across.  There is quite a color range in the stones coming from this region.  This stone tends towards the orangish side.

Next is another Malawi garnet which is has a purple red color.  It is 7.8 mm. in diameter and is 1.64 carats.

Even more purple this garnet from Umba region of Tanzania is 1.56 carats and 6.7 mm.

Like the Malawi garnets, the Umba garnets also have a wide range of color.  This orangish red one is 1.06 carats and 6.0 mm. across.

Another parcel was labeled “Ruvu River” which is also in Tanzania.  This slightly purplish garnet is 1.02 carats, 5.8 mm.

 

 

 

 

Mali Garnet

Pictured here is a 1.61 carat Mali Garnet that is 6.7 mm. in diameter. The color is a dark orange, almost brown. This might be the perfect in a ring for the January birthday man who wants something other than a traditional red garnet.

Post holiday updates

Faceting related activity got prempted by the holidays. Finally got to posting the last of 2017 gems on the website.

These stones included several prasiolites (a light green variety of quartz) and even more garnets. Of course, the birthstone for January being garnet, that does seem an appropriate way to start the year. And if you need a garnet, but don’t like red stones (or even better, have many red garnets already), be away that garnets come in just about every color. There has even been a recent finding of BLUE garnets! Browse some of the other pages on the site to see some other shades of garnet.

Pictured here is a purplish pink garnet from the Mahenge region of Tanzania.