A few new stones; and Umba Sapphire, a small pink sapphire from Madagascar, both all natural no heat, a Spessartite garnet from Tanzania and some tourmalines. These tourmalines have been up on the site for a long time as dark red stones, maybe too dark. So I put them in the oven, and heated them to around 1000 degrees, and turned them this nice pink. Maybe they will catch someone's eye now.

A few people have asked, so here’s the answer. The cut sapphire here, is not one that was pictured in the rough on my last blog posting. It’s from the same parcel, but not in the picture.

I thought you may be interested in a few of the new stones I bought this month. These are all from Tanzania Africa.
The first are some natural unheated Umba Sapphires in blues and violet colors. These should all cut stones from 1 to 1.5 or so.



This next parcel I couldn't pass on, even though the price was more than I liked. These are Spinels from the Morogoro area of Tanzania.



These bright orange stones are the new Spessartite Garnets that were just found this past year in Tanzania. The color on these is a bright fanta orange. This parcel are all pretty good size stones that will cut 2 to maybe 4 ct stones.



This last one is just a killer color pink sapphire. In Africa they call this ruby, but it's really a very intense magenta pink sapphire.



And last of all, the latest cut stone. Another one of the Tanzanian Spessartite. This one is 1.95 cts, very good crystal and color

Tags: African Gems rough

Two new stones today. The first is a Sapphire from Umba Tanzania. This one I cut in a emerald type shape, but not a traditional emerald cut. What's nice about these Umba sapphires is that they are all natural, no heat or other treatments. They also show a color shift depending on the lighting. This one goes from a violet to purple depending on the light.



The next stone is a Spinel from Morogoro area in Tanzania. This one has a real nice color and a nice size. It's 3.32 cts. and measures 8.5 mm.

Tags: Sapphire