Gem: Color change garnet
Weight: 1.02
Dimensions: 6.6 x 5.25 mm
Clarity: VS -just a very little bit of sparse rutile and silk
Faceted By: Scott Maier
Original gem design by: Scott Maier
Origin: Kamtonga, Taita Taveda, Tsavo region, Kenya
Treatments: NONE
Comments:
Color change garnets are a mysterious and beautiful kind of stone. They show not just one color, but two, or many. Some shift only a little, from one shade of a color to another shade in the same general range. But sometimes, you can get an amazing, and hard color change, like with alexandrite. Blue garnets, especially, are very drastic.
Blue garnets, or in this case, blue-purple, only come from two places. These treasures are some of the rarest gems on earth!
This one was cut in a design that I came up with specifically for this stone. I really love the resulting pattern.
With a 'home color' of moody purple, and lots of blue undertones, this gem is already interesting and unique in just ONE lighting condition. But it's other personalities include: baby pink in warm, diffused daylight, red-leaning magenta in incandescent light, and a supernatural greenish color under cell phone light. With the cell phone light, for whatever reason, the rutile needles also grab the light and shoot back rainbow sparkler kinds of effects out of the green. It's really quite something. (the rutile is not visible in any other lighting condition)
Its a good size for a ring stone. No to low windowing, and an open color make this gem tops, all around.
NOTE: To see the blue features of this gem clearest, look at the photos showing mixed light: You will see blue, purple, and reddish magenta. These two photos show the gem in shaded daylight, WITH the presence of a candle flame for the incandescent light.