Spinel

The origin of the name ?spinel? is uncertain. Spinel can be found in many colors such as red, pink, blue, green, orange? fine red and blue spinels are considered among the most valuable gemstones. It is a relatively unknown stone to the general public, and this is a pity as this is one of the most beautiful gemstones available.

The point is that spinel?s rarity hasn?t motivated any major company to promote it because if the demand were to rise, the supply would not be plentiful enough to keep up with it. Therefore, spinel remains mostly a stone for the connoisseur, for those who love it for its combination of excellent durability, fine pure red color and high brilliancy.

Spinel is the near perfect wedding of ruby and diamond qualities! Spinel is so close to ruby that for years it was mistaken as ruby and its common misnomer was ?Balas Ruby?. Actually, the 2 most famous rubies:
The ?Black Prince Ruby?, the ?Timur Ruby?, both from the British Crown Jewels, are actually red spinels! The finest quality red spinel comes from Mogok in Burma (Myanmar) with a deep red color that matches the color of most rubies.

Another source of Burmese top quality spinel has been discovered in Nanyazeik (or "Namya" in the Kachin people's language). These rare but exceptional spinels can reach a hot pink color as saturated and fluorescent as candy. Spinels are also found in Vietnam, Sri Lanka or Russia but without reaching the Burmese color qualities. Spinel (MgAl2O4) belongs to the cubic system. It is found as a metamorphic mineral as marble, and also as a primary mineral in basic rocks, because in such magmas, the absence of alkalis prevents the formation of feldspars and any aluminum oxide present will form corundum or combine with magnesia to form spinel.

This explains why spinel and ruby are often found together. In terms of quality, top stones combine eye-clean clarity with an intense color, without any secondary brown tones. But such stones are damn rare. One reason is that, unlike ruby, there are no known treatments to improve spinel color or clarity, so the stones in the market are usually just polished and cut! You can just dream to get the small quantity of fine gems that the mines produce.

Regarding current prices in the market, spinel is very under valued compared to ruby, an equivalent fine quality is around 10% of the price of ruby, but top spinels may be 100 times more rare! Fine spinels are real investment stones.

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Ruby, Rubies, Red Sapphire

Burma (Myanmar) is famous for producing the greatest amount of top quality ruby with a fine, clear, deep-red color. Most of the best quality ruby comes from the Mogok Valley in Burma and others from newer sources such as Mong Shu (discovered in the Shan State in 1991), and Namya, in the Kachin State, which experienced a rush in 2000. ?Pigeon blood? was once the paramount color for ruby but this appellation is now tricky as there is no standard behind it.

Ruby can be true red or red with some purple or orange overcast or going towards pink. On the last point, the fact is that ruby and pink sapphire are basically the same stone as they are both aluminum oxide with a small amount of chromium. High levels of chromium give red, lower concentrations give pink. There is no clear and worldwide-accepted borderline between what is a ruby vs. a pink sapphire. Rubies in Mogok and Mong Shu are found either in marble primary deposits in the mountains around the valley or in alluvial placers in the valley.

In Namya they are exclusively found in alluvial deposits in this swamp area. All Burmese rubies were born from a metamorphic process (as well as Vietnamese, Nepalese and Afghan stones). They are usually poor in iron, and as a result, show a strong red fluorescence which make them different from their cousins from basaltic deposits in Thailand or Africa. Rubies usually occur in Burma as tabular crystals with hexagonal prisms. Usually the basal plane shows markings consisting of striations, often as equilateral triangles, and prisms are commonly striated horizontally. Mogok also produces some more rare ruby crystals in which rhombohedrons are so well developed that the stone looks similar to a spinel crystal. For many centuries red spinels and rubies were associated with one another and believed to be the same stone.

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HISTORY OF CHANTHABURI – PART 3

After this, Burma lent its hand to the Chanthaburi gem scene, with a new source of ruby from Mong Hsu. This new source, one of the largest deposits of ruby in recent history, produced Burmese ruby with one problem, most of the red crystals had a bluish core which would make the cut stones look purplish. Once again, the Chanthaburi burners came to the rescue. With a new technique to heat the blue core out of the stone, which would leave some silk in its place, the “new and improved” Mong Hsu rubies were a hit, quickly dominating the market.
Rubies and Sapphires from Madagascar began to appear in large quantities on the market in the 1990’s. These gemstones, combined with Thai heat treatment again proved to be a winning combination.

In 2001, Chanthaburi began producing large amounts of the lovely padparadscha sapphire. Markets such as Japan when wild for the stone, and dealers began to ask where the stones were coming from. After much discussion, the Chanthaburi dealers admitted that the stones were being beryllium treated. This caused a shockwave throughout the international gemstone trade as many said that this beryllium treatment was a type of diffusion and not simply a form of heat treatment.

Chanthaburi has over time weathered many storms, and has repeatedly come out on top, still retaining its place as a center of the international gemstone scene. Thought the weekend gemstone market is currently slower than it has been in the past, anyone can still go and sit down at a dealers table and see a wide variety of stones from around the world.

HISTORY OF CHANTHABURI – PART 1

The small town of Chanthaburi, nestled in southeastern Thailand on the border with Cambodia, is undisputedly the center of the world’s gemstone trade. Although the Mahesak area in Bangkok is seen by many as the center of Thailand’s gemstone district, the real footwork is done 4 hours bus ride to the southeast.

Chanthaburi, a name derived from Sanskrit and literally means city of the moon, has long been a center for the trade of gemstones. As early as the 14th century, Chinese travelers wrote of Chanthaburi as a gem market where brightly colored gems were bought and sold. In these early days, much of the gemstones which were sold in Chanthaburi were mined locally. Ruby and sapphire mines were scattered around the city, and by the 18th century were producing fine rubies and sapphires in addition to black star sapphires. These Chanthaburi gems formed the foundation of the Chanthaburi gemstone market.

The first country which began to bring its gemstones to sell in Chanthaburi on a large scale was Cambodia. The mines of Pailin, just over the border from Chanthaburi, produced large amounts of quality blue sapphire in addition to ruby, yellow sapphires, zircon, and garnet. These were then brought to what had become the largest gem market in the region.

Soon the Burmese would follow, with Shan traders from Mogok bringing their gemstones to sell in Chanthaburi. These Shan traders, in addition, brought more effective mining techniques which they had over time developed in Mogok, thus increasing the quantity of rubies and blue sapphires produced in the area and increasing an already growing gemstone market.