Are these really Garnets?

This is a question for the Gemologists out there - -

Has anyone heard of the following types of Garnets: Hydrabadi
Garnet, Indo solite Garnet, or Orissa Garnet?

(Or can you point me to a reference for them?)

A well-known supplier has these in their catalog and they are rather
expensive. I can’t find reference to these names in any of my books.
When I “googled” them, I found lots of vendors selling jewelry made
from these types of garnets, but no reliable reference material. So,
I’m wondering, having learned from you all that sometimes names are
just trade names and maybe the material is not really what they are
calling it, are these things really garnet and worth the price? (ex -
one 16" strand of Indosolite Garnet, 5mm faceted rondelles for
$69.00.)

Thanks in advance for your insight!

Nan
www.zazzique
Zazzy Jewelry Designs

Yes. Hyderabadi and Orissa are the Garnet Mines producing Garnet
from India and Garnets mined from these locales are thus known. They
are very distinct from each other. Do not know about Indo solite
Garnet.

Good luck
Anil

Hi Nan,

I believe them to be trade names for garnets being mined and/or
traded in India. Google for the names alone and you’ll end up in
India. The Orissa is Almandine garnet if I understand correct.

The garnet group consists of 6 main members divided into two groups:

1: pyralspite (pyrope-almandine-spessartine)
2: ugrandite (uvarovite-grossular-andradite)

These are isomorphous groups, meaning that some of the endmembers
can be part of the structure in one crystal. For instance
pyrope-almandine is an isomorphous serie and somewhere in between
lays rhodolite.

Other series are pyrope-spessartine, spessartine-almandine,
pyrope-grossular and grossular-andradite.

In those series you can fine intermediates with names as melanite,
malaia, tsavorite, hessonite, mali, topazolite, demantoid,
mandarine, hollandine, kashmarine, maralambo and color-change.

Those are the names recognized I believe. The rest are trade names.

We did a few chats on them a while back, you can read the logs at
http://yey.be/yglogs/yglog45.cgi, http://yey.be/yglogs/yglog46.cgi
and http://yey.be/yglogs/yglog47.cgi (Dr. Hanneman attended that one
incognito).

Hope that helped,
Alain

I don’t know about the others but I went through this a few years
ago with Orissa garnets, Orissa is an area in India so I suppose they
come from there.

Tim Blades.

Has anyone heard of the following types of Garnets: Hydrabadi
Garnet, Indosolite Garnet, or Orissa Garnet? 

Mystery solved, I had a thought, so looked into it. Those are
places. This is what is known as marketing hype. Information is hard
to come by.

  Grape Garnet, Mined in the Orissa district of Northwest
  India. Is a mixture of almandite & spessartite. It is an
  intense purple-red variety of garnet, that has a distinctively
  different in color than ordinary rhodolilte or amandine garnet.
  These garnets can be purple and could be easily confused with
  amethyst." For faceters, "It tends to black-out at sizes above
  three carats. 

Nothing on the Hydrabadi, if it is different? Indosolite Garnet is a
different color. Yes they are garnets. I think the use of name here
is of marketing hype (more money asked). Go by color, clarity, etc.
and comparison.

Dear Nan,

At the sight of your question I grabbed my trusty GIA Gen Reference
Guide which is about 10 years old. The closest thing under garnet I
could find was Hydrogrossular. Hydrogrossular is translucent to
opaque material which would be made into beads in shades of green,
aqua, pink, white and gray.

Absolutely nothing listed for Indosolite, Hydrabadi, or Orissa. My
first thought is that these are regions in India or Indonesia that
have the gemstone material named after them.

I would go direct to GIA with your question, if these are new trade
names or misnomers for other mineral species in the garnet group they
will let you know.

Nanz Aalund
Associate Editor / Art Jewelry magazine
21027 Crossroads Circle / Waukesha WI 53187-1612
262.796.8776 ext.228

Hello,

I do not know very much of the trade names of the But when
I was studying Gemology the garnet group’s properties, chemical
compositions etc. were the most difficult to understand for me. After
I solve the problem in my mind I made a table of this group. I even
offered Hanuman to put it in the Ganoksin website for everybody but
when I didn’t get an answer I put it in my website. If you like to
see it go to; www.birdamlasu.com/gemology While you are in my website
visit my beadwork too www.birdamlasu.com/jew 4

Kind regards from freezing Montreal,
Oya Borahan GG, FGA, DGA
www.birdamlasu.com

Dear Oya, I went to see your site and the link from email did not
work. You need to know that. I will try from copy and paste and see.
Unfortunately, that does not connect either.

I have a question for you and others here concerning garnets. Some
years ago to have a nice red pyrope garnet was not so difficult.
Today, I see “Mozambique” garnets with more orange and less red. To
find a nice pyrope is very difficult. Even almandite is not listed
with many suppliers, going instead to the African garnets with more
orange hiding in the brown and red or even overpowering other color.

Why is this? Where have the old almandite and pyrope garnets gone?
Is this the marketplacefromt the supplier side dictating the
availibility of the stones? I wonder.

Thanks for any input. Thomas.

Hi Thomas,

My website is http://www.birdamlasu.com . Click on “gemology”, then
you will see under natural gemstones the “garnet group” click on
this. It is a word document.

Kind regards,
Oya