Almandine gemstone

Physical properties of almandine

Characteristics of almandine

Almandine is one of the most interesting gemstones.

Almandine is a type of garnet gemstone of red or red-violet color - raspberry, cherry, purple and red-brown. There are almandines and almost black.

Almandine got its name from the name of the area - Alabanda (Asia Minor). Hence the other names of the stone - “Alabandine ruby”, “Alabanda venisa” (garnet was previously called venisa in Russia).

Almandine is one of the most common garnets. But its most important quality is hardness. This gemstone is the hardest among the garnets.

Almandine is a fairly expensive gemstone. But there is one difficulty - to distinguish almandine from other types of red garnets is possible only with special diagnostics. Almandine sizes most often do not exceed 4 centimeters. Moreover, stones up to 4 mm in size are considered second-class, and only almandines exceeding 5 mm are first-class.

Almandines are used by jewelers in the manufacture of rings, earrings, brooches, necklaces, pendants, bracelets, beads.

How much is almandine

Almandine is a very inexpensive gemstone. Even large stones are not highly valued - because of the rich color, they often look almost black and are rarely used in jewelry. Clean stones of good quality are valued at about $20 - $25 per 1 carat, average quality almandines will be valued at $10 per 1 carat. Beads made of ornamental muddy almandine can be bought quite cheaply - for $25 - $30 per string of beads.