I wondered if it might actually be spinel, but beryllium treated sapphire seems the best bet, judging from the look of the beads and the description in this article:
Joined: Mon Oct 17, 2005 2:39 pm Posts: 3528 Location: San Francisco Bay Area, CA
Looks like legit sapphire from Tunduru that's been thoroughly cooked with Be. There is also certainly a lot of multi-colored spinel coming out of Tunduru as I recall, but there doesn't seem reason to not suspect Be-corundum.
Joined: Tue Aug 01, 2006 3:24 am Posts: 4997 Location: McDonough GA
Chris,
Tunduru is famous for producing a wide range of gems. For a while parcels of "Mixed tanzanian rough" were widely available. These parcels contained everything from sapphire to spinel to kornerupine to garnets. It's possible these beads are made from similar parcels of rough and then roughly color matched. As best I can remember the rough was not expensive except in larger sizes.
If it's sapphire only I'd guess it's been heated but otherwise untreated. If it were be heated the colors would be quite bright and vivid. As it is they are pretty drab.
Joined: Fri Feb 24, 2006 1:20 am Posts: 2756 Location: Southern California, U.S.A.
Many natural sapphires are naturally parti-colored, especially some from Australia. Some exhibit beautiful yellow-blue to orange-blue. Here's a particolored Tunduru sapphire of mine that displayed the yellow-orange color only after low heat treatment.
Joined: Sun Oct 16, 2005 12:22 pm Posts: 21602 Location: San Francisco
I presume they are all sapphires, I haven't individually tested them, but I bought them as sapphires and they all appear to be. They were very inexpensive, their tones are very earthy and subtle, not vibrant at all. Some of the stones look treated; others not.
These beads are not for everyone, but I like them, especially with khaki colors.
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