Blue Spinel Vs Sapphire

Blue topaz is the result of irradiation treatment and tanzanite is often heated to enhance its blue color.

Blue spinel vs sapphire.

Blue spinel is a rather special stone. Blue spinel vs sapphire. Spinel has been making a name for itself over the last couple of decades and demand for fine stones well exceeds supply. Spinel occurs in a wide variety of colors.

It is easy to understand how early gem traders confused spinel with ruby and sapphire for over 1000 years. Color is an important factor that defines spinel s price red spinel is rarer than other varieties and also more expensive. Tourmaline pg 2 black orange blue green tourmalines. A case in point is the internal diffusion seen in a heat treated sapphire induced as the titanium from rutile silk inclusions was dissolved into the crystal lattice of the host sapphire at high temperatures.

Other varieties are more common and less sought after. The bright reds and deep blues are spectacular specimens. Its cheaper than sapphire and is very light. Man made spinel is used extensively.

This dissolved titanium pairs with iron to increase the amount of blue color in the stone. Blue sapphire is the most famous. In fact spinel is in great demand among gemologists and gem connoisseurs. However hundreds of years ago when spinel was found together with sapphire and ruby it was impossible to tell them apart.

There are few gems that occur naturally in blue. Blue exemplars are the second rarest spinel gems. Blue spinel hues range from violet blue through very slightly greenish blue. Spinel pg 2 red spinel pink spinel other colors.

Tourmalines pg 3 pink red yellow and other colors. Nevertheless spinel s price even in those cases is still lower than the price of sapphire and ruby. Tourmalines pg 4 paraiba tourmalines. There is no telling how many spinels have actually been sold as sapphire.

In the deeper blue colors there are only softer stones such as kyanite and iolite. Discovered accidentally when scientists were experimenting to try and produce a flame fusion blue synthetic sapphire spinel s great advantage is that it can be made to reproduce almost all colors except purple the blue synthetic spinel sapphire imitant is much more genuine looking than a synthetic blue spinels imitating synthetic sapphires. Red and blue spinel. Blue spinel is a gem made of a compund of iron and sapphire.

Garnet pg 2 understanding garnets. Spinel pg 3 synthetic spinel. Sapphire ruby pg 2 ruby.