And the only reason why I can afford these beautiful, rare, and
durable spinels is that they don't have the name recognition of
rubies. Spinel is close to opal among my favorites, but most
people could care less. Yeah, educated people know and care, but
most potential clients aren't educated.
I do not believe that the people are not educated, they are, and that
education is from the traditional jewelry "establishment", ruby,
sapphire, emerald, diamond, garnet, amethyst, blue topaz, sometimes
opal, a few others are what is marketed by the majority of
traditional jewelry stores.
I have shown people beautiful natural gems, and say that they don't
look real, and I tell them that when people see imitation gems, they
look like like the best quality natural gems and then when they see
the natural gem they think it not real because the majority of the
gems Americans see in mall stores are low quality crap.
I too have natural spinel. My experience is that people are more
excepting of the use of the less common gems when the design is the
primary focus and the gems are both the enhancement of the design
and they make the piece "pop". Another point to make is that the
color red is not found in many natural gems, and point out that a
natural ruby of that color would be $$$$$ and this gem is natural,
comparable in color to a fine ruby, and it is $$ and quite
affordable. Hopefully your spinels are not pinkish red, purplely red,
but a true fine ruby red.
Richard Hart G. G.
Denver, Co.
