Superior Large Garnets, 9ct Gold Earrings. Garnet is a complex crystal family, with, among other variants, different colours depending on the trace elements involved. The wine red of the above Garnet specimens is caused by the presence of iron; this wine red Garnet is called Almandine Garnet, and is by far the most well-known member of the Garnet family.
When the wine red Garnets of Bohemia were introduced into Victorian England in the 1800s, the English appreciation of the gemstone was such that the Bohemian mines were played out by the beginning of the 1900s. Since then India has been the main source of this Garnet type, and still is, but genuinely AGrade colour and translucency, especially in larger gemstone examples, is now rare.
The matched wine red Garnets above, 10x8mm cut ovals, are of the very best Almandine quality; they were mined and cut in the 1970s/1980s, and are easily superior to anything of the like on the market today.