Man made spinel is used extensively.
Blue spinel vs sapphire.
Other varieties are more common and less sought after.
However hundreds of years ago when spinel was found together with sapphire and ruby it was impossible to tell them apart.
It is easy to understand how early gem traders confused spinel with ruby and sapphire for over 1000 years.
This dissolved titanium pairs with iron to increase the amount of blue color in the stone.
Spinel occurs in a wide variety of colors.
Spinel pg 2 red spinel pink spinel other colors.
Blue spinel is a rather special stone.
Tourmaline pg 2 black orange blue green tourmalines.
The bright reds and deep blues are spectacular specimens.
In the deeper blue colors there are only softer stones such as kyanite and iolite.
There is no telling how many spinels have actually been sold as sapphire.
Spinel pg 3 synthetic spinel.
Nevertheless spinel s price even in those cases is still lower than the price of sapphire and ruby.
This has to some degree closed the spinel vs.
Tourmalines pg 4 paraiba tourmalines.
Blue spinel vs sapphire.
Blue topaz is the result of irradiation treatment and tanzanite is often heated to enhance its blue color.
Its cheaper than sapphire and is very light.
Sapphire ruby pg 2 ruby.
There are few gems that occur naturally in blue.
Color is an important factor that defines spinel s price red spinel is rarer than other varieties and also more expensive.
Spinel has been making a name for itself over the last couple of decades and demand for fine stones well exceeds supply.
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.
Blue spinel hues range from violet blue through very slightly greenish blue.
With modern gemological tools we can easily distinguish between blue spinel and blue sapphire.
Blue sapphire is the most famous.
Sapphire ruby.
In fact spinel is in great demand among gemologists and gem connoisseurs.
Red and blue spinel.
Blue spinel is a gem made of a compund of iron and sapphire.
Garnet pg 2 understanding garnets.