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Post by gingerkid on Jul 7, 2015 6:31:48 GMT -5
Thank you, snowmom! I appreciate your kind comments!!  Some flavors of garnet gemstones can be quite pricey and you may find yourself taking out a second mortgage trying to purchase one. Here's the largest garnet in my very small garnet gemstone collection. It's a 24 carat red spessartite that has nice red flash in certain lighting. I purchased it from a good friend, Jason Brim, owner of Select Gem, several years ago.  red Spessartite Namibia 24 carats Here's another spessartite that I used to wear daily with my wedding rings until I scuffed it up pretty bad and it needs to be recut. This one is an orange-red at 3.64 carats, and the photo of my ring was taken by the seller, Rodrigue & Sons of Awesome Gems.  orange-red SpessartiteMadagascar 3.64 carats |
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herchenx
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Post by herchenx on Jul 8, 2015 0:23:48 GMT -5
Thank you, snowmom! I appreciate your kind comments!! Some flavors of garnet gemstones can be quite pricey and you may find yourself taking out a second mortgage trying to purchase one. Here's the largest garnet in my very small garnet gemstone collection. It's a 24 carat red spessartite that has nice red flash in certain lighting. I purchased it from a good friend, Jason Brim, owner of Select Gem, several years ago. red Spessartite Namibia 24 carats Here's another spessartite that I used to wear daily with my wedding rings until I scuffed it up pretty bad and it needs to be recut. This one is an orange-red at 3.64 carats, and the photo of my ring was taken by the seller, Rodrigue & Sons of Awesome Gems. orange-red SpessartiteMadagascar 3.64 carats Whoa small world! I went to High School with Jason, we've stayed in touch and in addition to buying a number of faceted stones from him, he sold me my first lapidary machine, when I first got started. Crazy! |
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Post by gingerkid on Jul 9, 2015 10:13:14 GMT -5
ROFL, yes, herchenx, small world indeed! That is so cool that you went to highschool with Jason, and that you've purchased gems and a lapidary machine from him, too!  He is very generous and kind, and has a good sense of humor. I would love seeing photos of your bling bling from Jason, and the machine if you still have it, too. Rick and I met Jason and his parents at the Martin Zinn Expos show in Cartersville a couple of years ago. A couple of the Gemology Online forum members from Georgia met at the show and we had dinner together. We had a great time, and it was really nice meeting them! Very fine folks!! Jason also brought a matching pair of beautiful Malaya garnets to the show and gave them to me. What a treat! I also have a gorgeous trillion reddish-orange Spessartite garnet, a heart-shaped color change garnet, and a huge Namibian orange Spessartite cabochon that Jason kindly gave to me. I'll try to take pics of them, but I take horrible gemstone photos. Here's some pics from the GO dinner that Jason's dad took if you would like to see them: gemologyonline.com/Forum/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=11879 |
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Post by rockpickerforever on Jul 9, 2015 11:27:14 GMT -5
Jan, was thinking of you last Friday when we went to the fair. While in the Lapidary Arts building, I took a few photos for you.
I don't know any more about them than what is written on their cards. (Cards are about 1.5 inches long) 
Same one, different view 
This is the largest almandine garnet I've seen, about 3" across, about softball sized. 
Wish I could have spoken with the persons exhibiting these. They may have been around when the fair first opened, but we were there on almost the last day. Seeing all that variety, now I know why you collect them! Jean |
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Post by gingerkid on Jul 9, 2015 12:27:29 GMT -5
Wow, those are outstanding (and large) specimens that you saw at the fair, Jean rockpickerforever. Many thank you's for sharing them with us!! The first one is a floater xtal of spessartine. These xtals are a great example of growth striations (belived to be etching at one time) that remind me of the "steps" found in Bismuth hopper xtals. The floater xtals of spessartine from Brazil are expensive. Here's an article I read discussing etching and growth striations on Brazilian spessartine: www.minsocam.org/msa/special/pig/pig_articles/etched_spssrtn.htmlI have a small floater xtal of Brazilian spessartine and got lucky on evil bay and won it for less that 20 big ones. Some of the Pakistani spessartine xtals look similar to the Brazilian spessartine floater xtal, but I think it is etching instead of growth striations (complete xtals). Love the almandine, and it has a gorgeous color to be so large! Jean, I have a Brazilian almandine xtal and polished slab from Brazil that is on layaway. You know it's bad when you are on a layaway plans for specimens. |
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Dec 13, 2017 20:32:07 GMT -5
Tommy can you try to fix gemfeller and other posts? Please and thank you.
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Tommy
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Post by Tommy on Dec 13, 2017 22:46:58 GMT -5
Tommy can you try to fix gemfeller and other posts? Please and thank you. I can and I will do the best I can. However, the majority of the broken images are in the first post and those are irrecoverable. They are broken at the "forums.opalauctions" source. |
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Oct 28, 2018 19:46:28 GMT -5
The post by NRG showing the hoppered spessartite reminded me of this thread (note the photos by rockpickerforever above). Also a couple of garnets I have... Finally splurged on one of the giant morimotoites from the Odikhincha Massif in Siberia. Before this, I've only had tiny crystals from the Japanese type locality and some from northeastern Russia. This one was made into a sphere - ugly and very heavy thing that only a garnet lover could love:  Also got a small pile of garnet & quartz sand from the collection of Arthur Flagg labeled skiagite from Baffin Island. Here is a sampling of the grains - don't know that I want to bother sorting through and testing, though:  |
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Post by Pat on Oct 28, 2018 21:46:07 GMT -5
Tommy could you fix the missing photos? They have the kitten instead. I forget if kitten means fixable or gone for good. Some just show a small empty box. Thanks.
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Tommy
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Post by Tommy on Oct 29, 2018 18:23:05 GMT -5
Tommy could you fix the missing photos? They have the kitten instead. I forget if kitten means fixable or gone for good. Some just show a small empty box. Thanks. Hi Pat, unfortunately no I cannot. They are broken at the opalauctions source. |
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goatgrinder
spending too much on rocks
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Post by goatgrinder on Oct 29, 2018 18:39:00 GMT -5
When you said you have a garnet collection you meant it. Never knew there is so many variations. There is a Garnet Hill in Paulding county. Been there 20 years ago and found iron garnets the size of golf balls. Had crystal shape but no glassy areas. They used to grind them for sand(garnet) paper. Great collection Jan. PS Jan, there was a road that crossed a cove of Lake Hiawasee that had been built on 'brought in' chunks of soft white granite. Or at least it was used as a sea wall to protect the road from the lake. My Dad took me there garnet hunting as a kid. Over the years i have tried to find that spot and never could. That matrix was full of 3/8 and a few 1/2 dead clear light purple garnet crystals. I was at Garnet Hill this past Sunday and yep, garnets are still there. Maybe it was a size difference, my pick-ups were thumb to pinky tip size, but they showed some very shiny faces that I might work with and had very nice crystal shape.
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goatgrinder
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Post by goatgrinder on Oct 29, 2018 18:57:26 GMT -5
If you follow rotten wood creek downstream from where this picture was taken to just before the first iron pedestrian bridge you will find yourself on a very fine rocky beach (when the water is down) that is loaded with more garnet and garnet schist and some of the garnets are bean sized vs. the usual peppercorn size. Also nice quartz, quartzite, feldspar, and the occasional amethyst. Plus, if you are lucky an arrowhead or two. My building overlooks the beach and I'm down there at least three lunch hours per week. Further down the creek and you run into the ruins of Aker's Mill; very evocative.
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dfa2124
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Post by dfa2124 on Jun 15, 2019 13:20:11 GMT -5
Bumping up this old thread, but I think this will be of interest to those who are into garnets. I recently acquired a big specimen of green garnet, which I believe is from Ghazni Province in Afghanistan. It's basically a big hunk of serpentinite-type rock, the top surface of which is maybe 2/3rds covered in glittering green andradite var. demantoid crystals. A link to a couple of pics here (probably too big to post directly), although in daylight the green is much livelier in person:
It's interesting how the crystals are sitting on a creamy white fibrous mineral, rather than directly on the rock surface. The crystals are a beautiful mint green in daylight, resembling tsavorite, with some more yellowish green crystals mixed in. Under a tungsten bulb, the mint green colour is muted and washed out, similar to how it appears in the photo. However, under an energy-saving light bulb the crystals change to a rich lime green colour. It's quite an obvious colour change. I've read of andradite/demantoid from Madagscar which also shifts from bluish-green to yellowish green in different lights and that is thought to be caused by traces of the rare earth elements cerium and neodymium. Perhaps mine is similar, although the matrix is different to the Madagascar specimens.
I believe this is the same material that Alan Guisewite posted on his website labelled as 'green pyrope'. Apparently it was originally thought to be pyrope, until the Smithsonian analysed it and found it was andradite.
The seller I bought it from didn't know much about it at all. In fact, believe it or not, he sold it to me as peridot!
For reference, the specimen is approx 16 cm by 12.5 cm by about 5.5 cm deep, although it is 7 cm deep at one end, and the weight is 1882.5 grams. It's a big piece and my largest specimen to date. |
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NRG
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Post by NRG on Jun 20, 2019 4:20:17 GMT -5
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gemfeller
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Post by gemfeller on Jun 20, 2019 18:32:51 GMT -5
dfa2124 : Interesting! I've never heard of CC andradites and I've done a lot of garnet research so it's another first. The garnet group just keeps on giving. Most of the CC stones I own and have heard of are pyralspites though I've recently heard of CC grossulars from Brazil. I have a research paper on it filed away somewhere. The usual trace element in CC garnets is vanadium and in some cases chromium. So cerium and neodymium open up a whole new area of possibilities as regions not formerly known as gem garnet-producers are explored. I've seen garnets from Tanzania and India with classic alexandrite CC (reddish-purple/green) and I have some small specimens from TZ that show as many as 3 different colors under various light temperatures. All CC stones are pure hell to photograph in my limited experience. Changing white balance simply doesn't work. The only method I've found useful is to leave the stone set-up in place while changing to lighting of different temperatures: daylight fluorescent, incandescent, led etc. The backgrounds aren't accurate but the stone colors are. I have many garnet images if anyone's interested. As an aside, does anyone know why gingerkid abandoned us? I really miss her posts.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jun 21, 2019 0:19:33 GMT -5
I really identify with your comment about the difficulty of photo'ing cc garnets. Drives me crazy. I can get the color to somewhat change with the white balance set to daylight, but the backgrounds end up looking so fakey and not nearly what I'm seeing in person. The incandescent background looks a horrible yellow, when what I'm seeing is white, but at least the stone itself has shifted a bit more toward what I see. As an aside, does anyone know why gingerkid abandoned us? I really miss her posts. She developed a problem in one eye that she eventually got corrected by surgery. Then her husband experienced some health problems, with other things in her life that caused her to put aside posting. I think she may still occasionally read, so: If you are out there gingerkid, we valued your contributions and hope things get back to a place where you again have some time to talk rocks! |
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gemfeller
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Post by gemfeller on Jun 21, 2019 11:27:57 GMT -5
@rocks2dust , if it's any consolation, some of the major color-change stone marketers (David Weinberg of Mulicolour Gems comes to mind) use Photoshop to represent their CC offerings. That's the only way I know of to make the backgrounds and actual stone colors consistent. I think it's forgivable because people tend to think that stones offered with actual background colors are "PhotoShopped." Crazy but that's the reality. Plus I think there's a general lack of consumer understanding about the color-change phenomenon. People may understand how the paint they've chosen for their living room shows hue changes from morning to afternoon light but may not recognize the color temperature principle when it's applied to gems. Thanks for the info about gingerkid . I knew of her eye problem but not other issues you describe. Like you I'd like to let her know she's missed. |
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jun 21, 2019 12:02:28 GMT -5
Plus I think there's a general lack of consumer understanding about the color-change phenomenon. People may understand how the paint they've chosen for their living room shows hue changes from morning to afternoon light but may not recognize the color temperature principle when it's applied to gems. Now, if the paint makers could only engineer some color changes that shift as much as they do in gems! Would be exciting to have my sitting room turn from green in daytime to red at night - might sit in there more often  |
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gemfeller
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Post by gemfeller on Jun 21, 2019 13:29:39 GMT -5
Plus I think there's a general lack of consumer understanding about the color-change phenomenon. People may understand how the paint they've chosen for their living room shows hue changes from morning to afternoon light but may not recognize the color temperature principle when it's applied to gems. Now, if the paint makers could only engineer some color changes that shift as much as they do in gems! Would be exciting to have my sitting room turn from green in daytime to red at night - might sit in there more often You're onto something  Maybe paint manufacturers should experiment by adding vanadium, cerium, neodymium and other trace elements/rare earths into their products. I used the paint example from personal experience. I almost went nuts once when I painted my living room and noticed big changes in tint from morning to late afternoon. I thought something was wrong with the paint. It was only when I started working with CC gems that I began to understand what was happening. |
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gemfeller
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Post by gemfeller on Jun 23, 2019 0:00:03 GMT -5
@rocks2dust , our discussion started me thinking about my color-change garnet enthusiasm of a decade ago or so. I purchased as many as I could afford and tried to understand not just the gemological principles involved but how to make accurate images of the change. The image below shows my best effort at capturing the actual color change while eliminating the annoying background colors. The problem: I can't for the life of me recall how I did it. There's a stirring in my memory that Photoshop was somehow involved in creating the white background but I'd have to experiment to remember all the steps involved. I'd hoped to sell some CC stones but quickly discovered there were big problems in presenting them to potential customers. In mixed-light situations, like looking at a stone next to a window in a room illuminated by incandescent light, CC stones often turn muddy in appearance. I found it hard to make people understand that the full color change occurred only in "pure" daylight or incandescent light, and that other illumination like mixed lighting, led's etc. would give different results. So my small collection languishes for the pleasure of my own eyes at the moment. And I enjoy it.  |
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Maybe paint manufacturers should experiment by adding vanadium, cerium, neodymium and other trace elements/rare earths into their products.
