GRADING REPORT TCC200
- Identification: Natural Unheated & Untreated Color-Change Garnet
- Carat: 2.00
- Shape: Trillion
- Measures: 4.47x4.51x2.78 (millimeter)
- Color Grade: Excellent
- Color Change: 'Dramatic' (that's the official term)
- Tone: Medium Dark 80
- Color Zoning: None
- Clarity: Lightly Included
- Cutting Grade: Very Good
> Brilliancy: 90%
> Depth: 64%
- Origin: Tanzania
- Treatment: None
Certificate No: AIG G94054129BE
Overall Grade: Excellent+ ('+' for size and rarity)
Comment: Unless you are an experienced color-change expert, you may not be aware that green-red color-change garnets are amongst the rarest of all garnets. They are also a rarity amongst color-changers in general but there are countless 'freak-occurrences' of CC in all kinds of ultra-rare gems. Color-change garnet are still considered 'normal' gems, not just curiosities. Yet, most CC garnet on offer display movements between yellow and brown, or red and purple, which are rather color-shifts that true color-changers. The Pyrope-Spessartite variety with Alexandrite-type color-change between green and red, or greenish blue and purplish red take a full jump across the color-wheel versus shifting between neighboring hues. Approximately ten years ago a larger strike of blue-green to purple-red CC garnets was found in Bekily, Madagascar; and it blew the minds of gem-junkies world-wide. We managed to acquire five or six those days, their prices sky-rocketed over the years and yet this is the last one left to us: 1.03. Though mostly on the smaller and darker side, Bekily garnets, as a group, were perhaps the most beautiful CC gems (not just garnets, but CC-GEMS) anybody had seen, ever. Amazing mixtures of red, blue-green and red-purple. But now, this: A pure green change to a pure red. (BTW: 100% Red-Green is a not-yet-found legend in alexandrites). Of course, all natural light is mixed, hence all colors are mixed, so on normal photos we get purple in the red, and brown hints in the green, but as you can see in some images, red sits right next to green. To squeeze out the pure extremes we had to focus the gem under artificial light-sources (but no photo-shopping). Hence, the pure red and the pure green images were shot in utter darkness with only one torch present. A real challenge. Check out the close-ups, have fun. Also, 3xNo: No window, no visible inclusions, no treatments. The typical needles visible under the strong torch are lens-only in person. The hand-cut is as good-as-it gets, flawless and balanced. $5k/ct might be the most expensive loose garnet on the web, if by far NOT the most expensive garnet in some high-fly fancy brand-jewelry shopping-mall, but consider that this may be the only one of its kind, plus full size and flawless quality.
P.S. To help visualize the extraordinary type of this color-change I've added a simple color-wheel below. Color-Shift would happen between, say, reddish orange and orange-red. 'Normal' Color-Change could be between yellow and orange, or purple and blue, BUT a full jump across the color-wheel, from RED to GREEN, is the most special and rarest of all CCs, almost non-existent, except for the very few.
P.P.S. Flashes of green in red-orange sunsets are considered once-in-a-lifetime chances of good luck; these, too, are rare jumps across the full color-wheel.
