A lot of people have been asking about Malaya garnet lately, and the colors of these stones. Malaya is one of the most misunderstood and misidentified stones. In Nigeria they sell a cheap read garnet with a brown color to it, and call it Malaya. These stones are not Malaya, and are no where near the price of true Malaya garnets. A Malaya garnet is a mix of Pryrope and Spessartine garnet. As such, the refractive index will fall between 1.74 and 1.77. The higher the amount of Spessartine, the higher the refractive index will be. The finest stones come from the Kenyan Tanzanian boarder area.

The picture below shows some of my collection of these stones in the rough, and the various colors. Depending on your taste, you may prefer the more orange stones, or the more pink ones. They cut very brilliant gems, and are a rare stone almost never found in a commercial jewelry store, unless the jeweler really specializes in colored stones.



I buy only the finest Malaya available, nothing too dark or off color, these stones will all cut exquisite collector gems.

Tags: Malaya Garnet

It seems like it has been a long time since I posted anything new here. I have been cutting several stones for special requests, but did manage to cut some stones for the site.

I don’t cut too many Tanzanite, since they are very expensive to buy in the rough, and you never know how they will turn out after heating, but I did buy a few piece this year, and here’s the first one. It’s a 1.52 ct stone.



This next stone is one of the Spinels from the famed Mahenge area in Morogoro Tanzania. The color is just fantastic on this stone. The picture can’t capture it. 0.8 ct.s



A new Zircon for Tanzania. These are very very dark red stones that are gently heated to lighten them up. In incandescent light, the stone gets a bit more pink. 4.46 ct.s



This last one is an Umbalite garnet, cut in my Star 80 design. It measures 8.24 mm and weights 2.59 cts

Tags: Garnet, Zircon, Tanzanite, Spinel