Someone Say Red?

Red red red. The rich royal ravishing hue has maintained most favored color status amongst gem lovers for eons. Color speaks for us, some say. And gemstone collectors say that red speaks bold and confident, but also symbolizes the heart.

We love spessartite in its most saturated form. It's a garnet you see. Garnets are members of a wide and harmonious family given to a 'you're all welcome here' philosophy. So you can't just toss out one chemical composition for these stones. Having said that, let's say that spessartite is a manganese aluminum variety.

Check out the rough crystal specimen with its surrounding ore. Garnets please with their hardness and their ability to take a fabulous polish. All the better to sparkle plenty.

Recent furor over unscrupulous treatment applied to low grade ruby making it seem quite the gem, has resulted in a buy-shy mood for jewelry fans who adore scarlet stones.

Here's a great solution. Chic and stunning, spessartite garnet delivers the bold look ruby fans crave with a bonus to boot. You're more likely to acquire that impressive sized spessartite garnet than a similar sized ruby. Did we mention spessartite is also completely natural? No treatments needed on these beauties.

Couture designer Victor Velyan knows just how to show off this splendid spessartite specimen.

Image Courtesy: D'Orazio Associates: Victor Velyan spessartite ring