Gem: Vanadium Bearing Kornerupine
Weight: 0.8 ct.
Dimensions: 7 x 4.4 mm
Clarity: VS / SI
Origin: Umba Valley, Tanzania
Treatments: None, natural gemstone
Comments:
As you can tell from browsing my website, I love this gem type.
It's extremely rare, and quite difficult to find clean, AND to cut. But it's all worth it -- This gem never disappoints. It's bright in every lighting situation, and has an aluring glow to it. It owes its neon grassy green color to trace impurities of vanadium within and between the crystal structure.
This example is a good size; large enough for a solitaire ring stone, no problem, and is really quite clean for the species. It has the trace remains of a dislocation in the crown that mostly cut out. Besides this, the gem is eye clean. Thats why I said it's between VS and SI.
This example of kornerupine has some subtle blue-green undertones, and a lot of brilliance.
Kornerupine, one of the worlds rarest gems, has a hardness of 7 on the MOHS scale, which is about equal to tourmaline - This means that, unlike some other desireable rare gems such as tanzanite, kornerupine can readily be worn as a ring gem.
The 2019/2020 deposit from which this, and almost all of my other kornerupine came is long gone now. It was exhausted two years ago, and sold out by the beginning of 2021. Some people have and sell it still, but it's not something you can count on being available anymore.