I cut a few of the lesser known garnets this week. This first one is a Malaya Garnet from Tanzania. Malaya garnet is often miss used to describe off color garnets typically from Nigeria. These Nigerian stones are very dark and area reddish brown color, they are also very inexpensive to buy in the rough. The true Malaya garnets from Tanzania and Kenya are a much different stone, and very attractive. This one is one of the more pink colored stones. The color on Malaya garnets does shift with the lighting going more yellowish flesh color in daylight.



This next stone is a Mali Garnet, from Mali Africa. These are seldom very large, a 1 ct stones is considered a good size. Mali Garnets have more dispersion than a diamond. The photo doesn't do this stone justice at all, in person it's very lively.

Tags: Mali Garnet, Malaya Garnet

A few new stones tonight. I got on a round kick this week, so there are a few rounds. These are my new round design, that I have yet to come up with a name for, but it makes for a very bright stone with a lot of flash. Much more than the standard round brilliant.

This first one is a large stone 6.54 cts. It's from a relatively new find of Malaya garnet in Kenya.



Heading a little south in Africa, comes this Green Grossular Garnet. Now the picture is horrid on this. There is no brown or yellow or mixed colors you see, it's all green. Too dark to be a mint, and too light for a tsavorite, both of which are basically trade names for Green Grossular Garnets. I cut this one is a classic Princess cut as it suited the rough, and I needed to stop cutting rounds.



This next stone is the last of the Lindi Garnets I have.



One more round, this time a Montana Sapphire.



And this last one that I just finished about 10 minutes ago is a Rhodolite from Tanga Tanzania. Very nice color in any light.

Tags: Green garnet, Malaya Garnet, Rhodolite garnet, Montana Sapphire