Joined: Wed Sep 02, 2015 10:52 pm Posts: 1131 Location: Central Queensland, Australia
My father recently acquired a bunch of stuff that belonged to my sister-in-law's grandmother who passed away early this year aged 91 (she was still doing carving and lapidary work at 90! Hope I can as well). There is quite a bit of interesting looking cabbing material and specimen material. Among it I found a small bag containing six or seven garnets of a pyralspite side of the family appearance. Deep rose-red, not quite rhodolite but with a more pinkish tinge than I have seen in most almandine. Two of them looked clean enough to facet so I started on one. Polishing was slow with both oxides and diamond, though the facets ultimately took a respectable polish. As I finished off the third pavilion facet, I noticed something that I somehow missed completely when inspecting the rough - the stone is full of little needles. Silvery-whitish, brightly reflective and mostly oriented parallel to one another in one direction. There are a small number in two other directions.
There was no hint of milky translucency at all in the rough, they were quite clear. I don't know how the faceted one will look when finished but there was one about 15 carats that wasn't faceting grade - perhaps it will show a star if cabbed?
Starring is very common in garnet, much more than it's made out to be. They would if cabbed, but it may or may not be pronounced. Alas, though, if you go on ebay and look at the prices of Indian material, even 6-rayed, they are very cheap. Those tend to be dark and opaque but still.
Joined: Wed Sep 02, 2015 10:52 pm Posts: 1131 Location: Central Queensland, Australia
I looked at the bag again, one of these stones is much bigger than 15 carats, it would be closer to 40. Another has pronounced "sparkles" under the surface but they don't look like cracks, I think they might be needles as well but I haven't examined it closely.
The other one came off the dop, it's nice enough. It actually looks more orange than anything now. Brilliance is a bit muted because of the deep colour and the needles are no doubt interfering with light as well but it's still nice to look at.
I might cab that bigger one today - is the star in garnets directional like it is in sapphire? Unlike a hexagonal corundum crystal, a dodecahedral garnet crystal looks the same viewed from any direction but these little needles are chiefly oriented one way.
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