African Hessonite Garnet (Mix)

Buying this parcel

Where it came from, what its weight band is for, and what to check before any money changes hands.

The deposit

The same East African grossular production as the single stone, taken across a spread of sizes rather than selected at the top of it. Hessonite is one of the species where a parcel genuinely represents its source, because the material is not treated and not usually recut, so what comes out of the ground in a given run is close to what reaches you. The characteristic internal swirl runs through every piece in the parcel, which is the quickest way to satisfy yourself that a lot is what it says it is.

This parcel

Five to twenty carats is a working range rather than a collector’s one. At the lower end these are stones for a Navratna mount, where Gomed sits alongside eight others and needs to be in scale with them rather than dominant. At the upper end they stand alone as a ring or a pendant. Buyers usually come to this parcel with a prescribed weight in hand and select the stone that meets it with the best transparency, which is the right way round: in hessonite, moving up a few carats costs much less than moving up a clarity grade.

Treatment

Untreated throughout, which for garnet is the normal state of affairs rather than a premium claim. No heat, no filling, no dye, no stabilisation, on any stone in the parcel. What this does mean is that any variation you see across the lot is real variation in the rough rather than the residue of some process, so selecting by eye is a reliable way to buy here in a way it would not be with treated material.

The report

No report is held for this 5 to 20 cts hessonite garnet parcel yet, and we would rather say that than name a laboratory that has not seen it. We will submit whatever you select to IGI or IIGJ before purchase on request.

Before you pay

• Pull three or four at random and check they all show the internal shimmer. A uniform, flat, glassy stone in the lot is the one to query.
• Compare saturation on white paper. Hessonite that looks rich against skin can look brown against white.
• If a specific weight is prescribed, ask to see everything within a carat of it rather than the single stone nearest the number.

Read next

Gomed, the hessonite covers the material itself and what gets sold in its place. How to buy a coloured stone covers pricing, treatment and reports.

Written by Kamal Kishore Agarwal, founder and gemmologist, Gem-A qualified, buying in Johari Bazaar since 2008.