Tsavorite Garnet

Item Description

Tsavorite (sometimes Tsavolite) is the green vanadium and/or chromium bearing variety of Grossular Garnet, first found in the Tsavo Region of Southern Kenya by Campbell Bridges in 1971. The stone was named after this area. One of the best aspects of Tsavorite as a faceted stone is that the material is singly refractive, which means that the material is not restricted due to pleochroism when the rough has to be oriented for cutting. This allows a gem cutter to retain a greater yield for faceted stones, which is a notable advantage over other gems which are doubly refractive, and have to be oriented in certain direction to yield the best color, which can result in a smaller end result. Richard Hughes states on his website ruby-sapphire.com, "If the definition of a gem is a stone that combines beauty, durability and rarity, tsavorite is near perfect." This stone is a fantastic "Cut Corner Triangle" cut gem with intense, vibrant green color and VERY VERY slight inclusions. A wonderful gem for a collector or a fine piece of jewelry. For reference, this past year in Tucson, we saw top Tsavorite gems retailing for over $5,000 per carat, though they were of a larger size than this stone.

From the old inventory of Ray Zajicek, a respected wholesaler and founding member of AGTA and the International Colored Gemstone Association, with decades of experience in the gem and jewelry business.  Ray has won more than a dozen Spectrum & Cutting Edge Awards (TM).