Color Change Garnet
Color Change Garnet
Color change garnet, a more romantic name and one that is in a real sense more accurate might be Alexandrite Garnet. This is the first and only known example of blue garnet. For the past fifty years, the statement “garnet comes in every color but blue” would be completely accurate.
Color Change Garnet is one of the most rare, interesting, and phenomenal of all gems. The color change can be intense and equal to the color change of top quality alexandrite. Color change garnets can easily be mistaken for alexandrite. Some of the best stones are from the deposit in Bekily, Southern Madagascar.
Like alexandrite, the Madagascar gem is a night stone. A lady of the evening who puts her best foot forward beneath the light of a flame. The primary hue under incandescent is a beautiful deep grapey purple. Sometimes a tiny bit of red can be seen flashing from the depths of the gem. In finer stones, the afternoon daylight hue is green-gray-blue to blue. A limpid crystalline stone is always beautiful and thus desirable.
As with alexandrite, color change in garnet is in part due to its even balance of transmission wavelength peaks (maxima) in the green/blue vs red spectra, the perception of which is tipped by the type of light source under which the stone is viewed. In daylight which is stronger in the blue green wavelengths, the stone will appear blue; in incandescent lighting which is richer in the red wavelengths, the stone will appear purplish red.
Color-change in any gem material is a complex interaction between many factors, not all of which are completely understood. Color change garnet is especially difficult to photograph. Not only does the color change as a result of illumination under different kinds of light sources but, it also varies as a result of geographical location and time of day.