Garnet is a family name. The family consists of more than half a dozen species and boasts gemstones in every color except blue. Most commercially available gem garnets are some shade of red, but dark emerald green garnets have become popular as well. Lesser known colors include shades of pink (malaya), orange (spessartine, grossular) and mint green (grossular, andradite).
Garnet is the birthstone for January. Pure red garnets (the species called pyrope) were the rage in Victorian times, and are usually very small. Brownish-red garnets (almandine) are the ones most commonly seen in modern jewelry. There is a unique garnet color variety with a chemical composition between pyrope and almandine. This variety, called rhodolite (in allusion to the rose-red color), can be purplish-red or dark red at one extreme, and pure violet (like amethyst) at the other. Purplish-red garnets almost always turn out to be rhodolites.
Small rhodolites with an amethystine color are found in North Carolina, but most gem rhodolites come from Tanzania and are red or purplish-red. The one pictured is a lovely purplish color, eye-clean, and extremely brilliant because it was custom-cut in Bangkok from rough acquired by Joel in Africa in the late 1970s. This quality of cutting is not usually found in jewlery store merchandise today.
We guarantee that this stone is untreated natural rhodolite garnet and dates from the 1970s. The price is for the one faceted gemstone and the shipping cost includes insurance within the U.S.
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