The History of Spinel

SPINEL

Category: mineral

Mohs hardness scale: 8

Color: green, gray, yellow, orange, red, blue, violet, black, white, colorless

ORIGIN AND FORMATION

For over a thousand years, spinel was mistaken for ruby and sapphire. The most famous spinel ever mistaken for a ruby, The Black Prince’s Ruby, forms the center stone of the British Crown, which is part of the Crown Jewels. This 170-carat spinel is the largest uncut spinel in the world.

 

The Timur Ruby, weighing 361 carats, is the largest uncut spinel and is also part of the British Imperial Crown Jewels.

The largest cut spinel weighs nearly 400 carats and is set in the Russian Tsarist Crown Jewels

, specifically in the crown of Catherine II the Great.

Spinels are rarer in nature than rubies, yet rubies are many times more expensive.

COLOR

Spinel is one of the few gemstones that occurs in almost every color.

The most sought-after color of spinel is red. Perhaps this is because it is essentially indistinguishable from a ruby.

Another highly sought-after and rare color is cobalt blue, especially if the spinel is larger than 2 carats.

Asteric spinel, or star spinel, contains rutile needles that form a six-pointed star and is cut into a cabochon shape.

Spinel boasts an amazing luster, surpassed only by diamond, sphene, and zircon.

OCCURRENCE

Sri Lanka, Myanmar (Mogok), Thailand, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Tanzania, Africa, Australia

USES

Spinel is most commonly used as a gemstone in jewelry. Unfortunately, however, it remains “unknown” and overlooked by the general public.

 

Spinel has excellent durability; it is both hard and strong, meaning that it is not easily scratched or broken. Thanks to its wide range of colors, durability, luster, and affordability, spinel is an excellent choice for setting in any piece of jewelry.

SYNTHETIC SPINEL

Synthetic spinel was discovered by accident during the production of corundum in the mid-19th century (the flux process).

It wasn’t until the 1920s that it was produced again as a light-blue substitute for aquamarine in jewelry making (the Verneuil method).

Currently, two methods are used to produce synthetic spinel: flame fusion (also known as the Verneuil method) and the flux method (sometimes referred to as fused flux).