Perhaps the recent find in canada will end up being significant enough to impress the market.
The location is very remote and the harshness of the local climate north of the Arctic Circle make it quite unlikely. I hope I'm wrong, I like the material!
Perhaps the recent find in canada will end up being significant enough to impress the market.
The location is very remote and the harshness of the local climate north of the Arctic Circle make it quite unlikely. I hope I'm wrong, I like the material!
Better Canada - some additional clothes and everything is fine. Hope we see some cut material soon.
In Luc Yen are dangerous snakes, it is hot and humid....no country for me
I have never seen the spinel in person, but it seems to have a beautiful color in photographs. I think it seems to be following a similar path of Paraiba tourmaline, another rare beautiful gem. A path that takes it out of the normal trade world into the very limited rarefied world of private collections and museums. I have search high and low for transactions that involve top grade Paraiba tourmaline. I think that hens teeth are more common. Yes The Guide has prices for top grade Paraiba in less than 3 carat sizes, but my feeling is that the price of a pure,well cut and glowing cyan Paraiba tourmaline (from Paraiba) in a 2.99 carat size would be negotiated (like the spinel) and not set by the market because there are not enough transactions to establish a price. By their nature negotiated purchases are erratic and volatile. And insulated from the great power of the trade to develop demand for a gemstone. If you don't have any product to sell who will spend resources to promote it? I personally think that the discovery of larger quantities of paraiba type material in Mozambique has helped push Paraiba into the realm of being a precious gemstone. Without similar support for the spinel ( reasonable availability) prices will not have the same price pressure that Paraiba has and will subside. Or at least not be more than a WOW factor to most people. Paraiba tourmaline as the sum of all the material from all locations (no one sells paraiba type material now) is truly blessed and I hope the spinel does not remain too rare.
Bruce
Personally I much prefer the rich saturated blues of cobalt spinel than the cyan colour of heated Paraiba tourmaline. In fact I've seen pics of unheated Paraiba material that is a beautiful deep violet-blue, and I also prefer that to the cyan colours, but that's just me. Unfortunately I suspect virtually all the Paraiba is heat-treated to get that cyan colour. Is that right?
I won this 2.51 ct lot of Luc Yen cobalt spinel a couple of days ago. I've bought from this seller before and his photos have been reasonably accurate so fingers crossed this is an idea of what they look like in real life. The two middle ones look lovely.
Hopefully they will arrive next week.
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Cobalt spinel crystals from Luc Yen.jpg [ 84.1 KiB | Viewed 2858 times ]
The cobalt spinels have arrived today, and they are beautiful. In the photo above the crystals show a violet modifier that isn't present in person, so they are actually a deep sky blue, and gemmy/translucent. Even better, they are the nicest cobalt spinels I've found so far, as they were a really good price!
Here's another one that arrived at the weekend. The label says it's from Okkampitiya, Sri Lanka, but I think it's from Luc Yen:
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Cobalt spinel in matrix Sri Lanka.JPG [ 323.72 KiB | Viewed 2756 times ]
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Cobalt spinel Sri Lanka 2.JPG [ 351.06 KiB | Viewed 2756 times ]
The crystals are a beautiful deep sky blue colour and quite gemmy. One crystal shows cyan and magenta gleams when it catches the light correctly. The size of the specimen is 25 mm by 25 mm by 11 mm.
Was outbid on that stone but dealer had another that I purchased. Like the Luc Yen material a quarter carat is considered large. This is a 27 point 4mm stone. Nice color but the clarity doesn't compare to my Vietnam stone. Here is a comparison. Both from same dealer( a G.O. member).
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20200305_143403.jpg [ 266.82 KiB | Viewed 1693 times ]
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