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58F magazine
Garnet, stone of the month for January
Garnet, red and much more on a vintage jewel
Garnet is often synonymous with red stone and its name is inspired by pomegranate, a fruit with a bright red color. Throughout history, ruby, spinel (another stone that can take on this hue) and garnet could be confused, before crystallography came to differentiate them with certainty.
In fact, garnet covers a wide family of gemstones, with red ranging from deep red to purplish like rhodolite. Some are very popular in other shades, such as spessartite garnet, called mandarin, with an orange color or green tsavorite or demantoid garnets. There are even so-called “change color” garnets that take on different hues depending on the type of light (such as alexandrite). In short, garnet finally has many possible colors!
This stone has been used since Antiquity, it is found in jewelry from all eras. Its characteristics make it a very beautiful stone for jewelry, with a hardness between 7 and 7,5 on the Mohs scale, good resistance, easy to wear on a daily basis, with the usual precautions, such as avoiding violent shocks or intense temperatures.
Features:
Garnet family: pyrope, almandine, spessartite, grossular and andradite
Hardness: 7 to 7,5
Impact resistance: good
Density: from 3,5 to 4,15 depending on the type