What Color is Garnet?
Hi. I'm Steve Moriarty from Moriarty's Gem Art. One question I'm commonly asked is about the colors of garnets, and people are usually quite surprised that garnets come in the full rainbow.
SEE OUR COLLECTION OF GARNET HERE
You can read below or watch our video on Garnet here!
We commonly think of garnets as being red. Typically, a darker red garnet is what we've seen in the past. These are the pyropes and almandines that came out of Europe, but there's really a wide variety of colors, not only in the reds because reds we can see as bright reds of the pyrope garnets out of the Arizona, which are known as ant hill garnets. They're a vivid red, probably redder than most rubies.
We also have a variety of mix of colors that we get into rhodolites, which can be red or they can be violet. The next color in the rainbow is the oranges. We'll see Spessartite garnets that have come out of not only Tanzania, Madagascar, that are probably the orangest of the garnets. They also occur red. Yellows are less commonly seen. Mostly, they're Grossular garnets. Not a whole lot of yellows on the market these days, but it does come up.
The greens a little more common. We see Tsavorite garnets coming out of Tanzania and Kenya. Demantoid garnets are a beautiful garnet that used to come out of Russia, most recently came out of Madagascar. The new Merelani Mint garnets, which are a by-product of tanzanite mining, very popular right now. It's just a beautiful lighter green with occasionally that minty blue color.
The voilets are now coming out of Mozambique, pretty extraordinary color. They're real similar to rhodolite in that they're a mix of pyrope and almandine garnet. Rhodolites commonly come slightly towards that purple color, but the new material coming out of Mozambique is quite purple, not quite amethyst but a very purple color.
Right now, there's a lot of intermediary colors that we've never seen before. These are currently coming out of Tanzania from Mahenge. They're kind of peach colors, like Malayas, very light pinks and just a wide variety of colors. So, garnet right now is pretty exciting.
The one color that is commonly stated in the books is not existing in garnet is blue. If you look back at trade journals from the '80s and magazines and books from earlier times, they say garnets come in all colors except blue, but in the '90s we started seeing garnets coming out of Bekily, Madagascar, and these garnets were color change, so they were incandescent. They were red, but in daylight and fluorescent light, they turn to beautiful blue color, often blue or blue-green, so that kind of filled the full rainbow of colors for garnets.
One of the rarest garnets is actually colorless, and in my time in business, I'm not sure I've seen a totally colorless garnet, but supposedly they exist. If you want to see the complete selection of our garnets, go to moregems.com or visit us in Crown Point, Indiana at Moriarty's Gem Art.
IS GARNET A SEMI OR PRECIOUS GEMSTONE?
It started out as a term set to the value of a stone. The problem with Garnet is you can find a $5 garnet, but then some Garnets are over $1,000 a carat. So you cannot label a Garnet precious or semi precious.
IS GARNET RARE OR COMMON?
It depends on the type and color of Garnet. The rarest Garnets are peach, green and clear. The red Garnets are more common.
HOW MUCH DOES A GARNET COST?
It all depends on the size and color of the gemstone. For example, a 2ct stone can range from $10 per carat to $5,000 a carat.
HOW ARE METAMORPHIC GARNETS FORMED?
It is changed by heat and pressure. The stones are already there, and then an increase in heat and pressure created Garnet.
WHAT IS DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A RED GARNET AND GREEN GARNET?
Greens are typically Grossular and Androdite Garnets and reds are typically Spessartite or Pyrope Garnets.
HOW ELSE ARE GARNETS USED?
Other than jewelry, Almandine Garnets can be used in sandpaper.
HOW MANY TYPES OF GARNETS ARE THERE?
There are 2 groups and 6 types. The two groups are the Calcium Garnets and Magnesium Garnets.
- Almandine
- Pyrope
- Spessartite
- Grossular
- Andradite
- Uvarovite
HOW HARD IS GARNET?
It depends on the type of Garnet, but it ranges from 6.5 to 7.5
WHAT TYPE OF ROCK IN GARNET FOUND IN?
Garnet is commonly found in many metamorphic rocks, but mainly in schist and amphibolite rocks.
ARE THERE BLUE GARNETS?
Yes, but according to the books no. Blue is seen in the coloring changing Garnets which change from a red to a blue depending on the lighting.
WHAT IS THE RAREST GARNET?
The rarest Garnet is colorless. In the 30 years that I have been in the industry, I have yet to come across a colorless Garnet.
See our collection of Garnet Here
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