So I announced lavender as one of the colors of 2021, thus trumping (or dumping) the official color of “butter yellow”, as much as I like butter.  Obviously, this means we now have to talk about lavender gems: sapphire, spinel, and, if you like, amethyst, Tanzanite.  And for me, the discussion should start with the underdog: spinel. 

“Lavender” is not a color recognized by gemstone labs, which will use terms like “light purplish pink or light pinkish purple” instead.  Lavender tones can range from a more blueish to a more pinkish tone, some of which I call another unofficial name: lilac.  In many ways lavender is a subjective color: how purple can a lavender gem be?  How light, how blue, how pink?  Also, how much gray can it have before it becomes gray with a purplish tint?

This last question is particularly important when grading and valuing spinel, most of which has a grayish tint and is most valuable when there is less of that.  The lavender spectrum in spinel ranges all the way from fully gray with a slightly purplish tint to a very faint purple or lavender or pink that barely has any color at all, and everything in between, including deep purples and blues. 

And what is the most valuable lavender color?  The one with the least amount of gray, of course.  Purest colors are preferred by most eyes, and this goes for lavender as well.  The eye also loves some saturation, hence the strongest and least gray lavender is what we love most, where the direction of lavender – pink or purple – seems to be more of a matter of personal taste.

Not all locations produce spinels in the purple range, but many do. There are no lavenders in Mahenge, Tanzania but there are some in Tunduru, Tanzania.  Lavenders come from Sri Lanka, Tanzania, Burma, Vietnam, Afghanistan.  The most grayish tones come from Sri Lanka and Burma, which is why I don’t favor those origins.  Burma offers wonderful reds of course but also straight grays and grays with all other secondary tones like blue, purple, lavender, pink, up to platinum and silvery tones and even whites.  Sri Lanka has fewer pure grays but lots of grape tones, grey blue, rosy grayish pinks, as well as some greens and orangish tones. 

My favorite sources of lavender spinels are, ranging from least to most preferred: Tunduru - Tanzania, Parawara - Afghanistan and Luc Yen - Vietnam.

Tunduru - Tanzania: As I noted above, that origin is not known for its gray tones.  Rather, you see a nice mix of light pinks, purples, blues with a little gray, silver, some peachy pinks but no orangish tones.  Lavender is less common than the other tones.

Parawara - Afghanistan: This region is not far from the Tajikistan mines known for red and pink spinels, but produces lavender spinels instead.  The find is recent, first heard about in 2017 when gem dealer Dudley Blauwet purchased a 56-gram parcel of rough at a gem market in Pakistan – the faceted material from this you see offered as an exclusive in our shop (the three largest gems from this rough were analyzed by GIA to characterize this new spinel).  Another parcel made its way to Bangkok.  It yielded a small amount of very large gems sold on the Chinese market.  GIA characterizes the sample spinel received as having shades of blue and strong purple colors.  The smaller gems are lighter and more lavender.  Neither have any significant color change.  After 2017, not much of this material resurfaced, most of it heavily included, and the region is politically unstable so it’s unclear when there will be more. 

Luc Yen - Vietnam: This is on the very TOP of my list for gem treasure hunts, as soon as it’s safe, and permitted, to be back out in the world.  In my view, the purest purples come from this region, but also lighter violets and pinks. Whether your preference is toward the more blue or the more pink, you will love looking at it.  There are also some light imperial tones, leaning towards peach but always with less gray and more pink than peach or orange.  Strong silvery or very light grays do not occur much or at all.

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I’m not sure if you know, but about two years ago spinel was added to the list of birthstones. It now accompanies peridot on the August list, making for a lovely variety of colors in addition to green for those who are born in August but don’t like that color. 

Spinel exhibits a lovely color variety of almost anything under the sun (even green), but most spinel ranges from red to blue with all the intermediate colors: pink, lavender, purple, etc.  Most spinel has a grey modifier, and a large quantity of spinel is actually mainly grey with modifiers of pink, blue, purple, and lavender.  Only a few localities show fairly pure colors. 

Spinel is a fairly hard stone, easy to work with, and up till now there’s no known treatment to either enhance the color or melt away inclusions.  Generally spinel is fairly clean anyway, so that is another plus.

There’s a ton to say about spinel, but I think the easiest way to get an idea of what this gem has to offer is to go through the various localities of origin and look at the individual qualities and colors available there.  For a personal twist, I’m going to talk about this in the order in which I was introduced to spinel.

Sri Lanka. My first exposure to spinels was around the fall of 2009, when I saw what looked to me (at first) like pink to purple sapphires with a few purplish blues.  Back then they were so cheap because it was a very underappreciated gem.  Very few people knew about it.  Most spinels from Sri Lanka have a stronger greyish cast, which is why I have gotten away from selling them over time but some of the better more saturated purples and blues come from this country.  There are even a few gems with cobalt content (this is what makes spinels blue) though it’s not as strong as the cobalt blue from Vietnam.

Here are some spinels from Sri Lanka that I owned back in 2012:

Mogok, Burma. This area is mostly known for it’s bright red spinels. But you can also get all the pink tones there, and most of the now popular greys are from that area as well.  Grey spinel is very abundant, even in larger sizes, and despite it’s popularity I don’t list very much of it.  Basically, this is because grey spinel is not rare, and I don’t want to overstock and then sit on them as the popularity wanes.  I can source greys of almost any size and shape without any problem, if need arises.  The Man Sin mine in Mogok is famous for it’s Jedi spinel, a reddish pink, or pinkish red (depending on personal preference) that is especially neon color.  My personal preference are the reddish pinks, not the pinkish reds because those are the most neon of all.  But the true reds and reddish pinks are pretty much equally expensive.  Of note: the black prince’s ruby in the British crown jewels is a spinel. Click here for a fantastic article about Jedi spinels. You may recognize Hemi Englisher, a fairly well known gemstone wholesaler who exhibits in Tucson.  These days, Hemi sells other gems more, though he still moves quite a bit of spinel.  His Mogok material has long ago wandered into other hands, though.

Click here for some neon red spinel currently available in our Etsy shop.

Burma Spinel Earrings and Loose Jedi Spinel:

Mahenge, Tanzania. It was the summer of 2010, when I went to the JA Show in New York city, browsing through the AGTA section. All the way in the back there was a young man from India, proudly showing off some very neonish pink gems that looked very similar to the red spinel I had seen, yet had a unique shade of their own: more of a warm pink by comparison, and except for a little bit of overlap between the colors, fairly easy to distinguish from Burmese material after a little practice.  The young man turned out to be Jaimeen Shah from Prima Gems, whose uncle (an Indian born in Kenya, who lives in Arusha, Tanzania) had bought up most of the initial claim back in 2007.  Previously the family had mostly dealt in Tsavorite and some Tanzanite, but the find in Mahenge changed everything.  Now fairly mined out, Mahenge spinel has brought much deserved attention to this beautiful gem, and drove up the price from $50 a carat wholesale in 2010 for half carat pieces to over ten times that in 2020.

Here's some Mahenge spinel from 2014, all sold.

Click here for mahenge spinel currently available in our Etsy shop.  

Here is the latest YouTube video I made explaining the differences between Sri Lankan, Burmese, & Mahenge spinels: 

 

And another exploring Burmese and Mahenge Spinels even further:

 

Tunduru, Tanzania. Jaimeen also introduced me to spinel from the south of Tanzania, close to the border to Mozambique.  Tunduru spinel, to my eye, has much in common with Sri Lankan spinel.  Ranging from baby pinks to (a few) lavenders and purples to blue, much of it has a grey cast.  However, you can find more of the blue tones in the Tunduru region, usually lighter pastel blues, and these do have a bit less grey than Sri Lankan spinel.  If you see parcels of each side by side, you will be able to distinguish between them fairly easily.  Tunduru spinel will be lighter in color, and it will have more blue mixed in.

Tunduru Spinel:

For more on Tanzanian spinels, you can watch this video I posted to my YouTube channel:

 

Luc Yen Region, Vietnam. About five years ago, when I first met Hemi, he had shared his booth with a young Israeli residing in Bangkok named Nir.  This is where I first saw Vietnamese spinel.  The colors were the purest lavender I had ever seen, and the neon pinks had a very unique tone to them as well.  Having looked at oodles of spinel in half a decade, I immediately noticed that these were different in tone with much less grey on average (though the less valuable material also has some grey).  There are also lilac tones, just a slightly more pinkish color than lavender, which are amazing and probably my personal favorite.  The most famous Vietnamese spinel, however, is the cobalt blue color, which now fetches prices of up to $50.000 a carat wholesale for 1-2 carat pieces, and up to $30,000 wholesale for well matched suites of smaller sizes.  This Luc Yen find has since disappeared.  There was a smaller find of blues in the summer of 2019, which was bought up very quickly.  Most of that material, however, did not have quite the same intensity.  I have a purplish blue almost two carat (AGL certified for Cobalt) in my personal collection that will remain with me, probably forever.

Vietnam Spinel: 

Cobalt Spinel from the 2019 find:

For more on Vietnamese spinels, you can watch this video I posted to my YouTube channel:

 

Ilakaka, Madagascar.  Until I went to Madagascar, I didn’t actually know that spinel originated from there because this origin is not always identified.  Also, Madagascar is a relatively young mining country, not very organized.  Lately, spinel is mainly found as a byproduct of ruby and sapphire in Ilakaka, but also in many other regions (Itrafo and others) as well.  Much of this spinel looks very very similar to Sri Lankan spinel, just like Madagascar sapphire looks very similar to Sri Lanka (Ceylon) sapphire.  The two were actually confused by well known gem laboratories until enough of a database could be established.  Most of what I have seen is purple to grey, blue to grey, and the occasional pink.  This material livens up considerably when well cut (I’ve gotten some from Nomads that I have loved). 

Click here for lavender spinel currently available in our Etsy shop. 

Madagascar Spinel on the Left, the rest is Burmese

Mozambique. This is a relatively new source of spinel (see this article).  So far all of the specimens I have seen from Mozambique are pink with the occasional secondary hue of lavender, and they have very fine silky inclusions. Ordinarily this is material I would have dismissed, as I favor clean stones like most people, but this material is unusually attractive and the silkiness enhances the appearance instead of distracting from it. 

Mozambique Spinel:

Here is the finest I have seen in this listing here:

Tajikistan. Another unusual origin, and rarely seen in the market because the area isn’t that safe or easy to travel.  I have seen very little material from there with my own eyes, but what I have seen is also less grey, a nice medium saturation pink.  Orangy tones from the area are also very famous but I’ve not yet seen one in person.  Maybe some day…

This is my only spinel from Tajikistan.

 

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Going gem shopping, for me, isn't only about chasing down the nicest and most unusual gems.  It can also be about finding colors that work well with my designs or my other gems.  I get very exited when I find a bright 1.2mm melee gem that still pops, like the amethyst I recently added to some of my designs.  Amethyst may not be an exiting stone, but having purple melee IS exciting.

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July is ruby month, so that makes a blog entry about ruby apropos. But what can I write about ruby that hasn't already been said elsewhere? 

Not much, but let me try. Here are some of the lesser known facts about this pretty gem. 

As you surely know, ruby is the pinkish red version of the mineral "corundum". But how pinkish red does corundum have to be to be ruby, and not pink sapphire? The answer...

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