Between sessionsThe next catalogue is in preparation
Sun, 2 Aug · AWST
Teals
Garnet

Loose garnet at auction in Australia

Garnet is a family, not a single stone. Almandine and pyrope give the familiar deep reds, rhodolite the purplish raspberry, spessartite the orange, tsavorite the green, and demantoid a green with more dispersion than a diamond. The prices across that family differ by orders of magnitude.

Garnet is almost never treated, which makes it one of the more straightforward things to buy in coloured stone. What you see is what the ground produced. That also means poor colour cannot be rescued, so the material has to be right at the start.

What to look for in garnet

  • Which garnet it actually is. Rhodolite and almandine look alike in a small photograph and do not price alike.
  • Whether the red goes black in low light, which the darker almandines do.
  • The absence of treatment, which is normal here and worth understanding as a genuine advantage.

What garnet has sold for at Teals

We have not sold garnet at auction yet. When we do, every lot and the price it realised will be listed here. The full record book carries every session we have run.

Garnet open for bidding

No garnet is on the block at the moment. The saleroom opens at 7pm AWST, and the session board lists every catalogue you can browse and bid on early.

Reading on garnet

Eye-clean, or included

Why coloured stones do not use the diamond clarity scale, and how we grade with two honest words instead of ten misleading ones.

Why natural still matters, when a lab can print a diamond for a fifth of the price

Lab-grown stones are real, and they have a place. But a printable thing has no scarcity, and scarcity is where a stone holds its value.