Did you know -

That beach sand contains garnet crystals? Or that some sandpaper, called garnet paper, is made from crushed garnet crystals? Or that garnets were used in jewelry before recorded history? To quote from the internet: “The garnet is so durable, remnants of garnet jewelry have been found dating as far back as the Bronze Age. Other references go back to 3100 BC when the Egyptians used garnet as inlays in their jewelry and carvings.”

Beach sand, garnet paper, inlay? Does this mean garnets are just cheap crystals no more rare than light bulbs?

Hardly true! Some are, some are not. Large, rare green garnets can cost as much as brand new, fully loaded luxury automobiles.

Garnet, the January birthstone, comes in a variety of colors: orange, yellow, clear, brown-ish red, orangish-red, and green. But the most red-colored, ones that look like brake lights (which many people say are easily mistaken for rubies), were found in late 2024 in the Luc Yen area of Vietnam.

Garnet colors are related to geography, such as Africa’s tsavorite and reddish pyrope, or Asia’s ultra red Valentine. The differences in garnet colors have to do with the chemical composition of the crystals. Some contain aluminum, some calcium, some are silicates.

Gemstones have been mined all over the world for millennia on all continents.

Crowns dating back centuries have been adorned with awe-inspiring jewels of all kinds, many containing historically famous gems. Rubies from Burma, sapphires from Kashmir, diamonds from Africa, opals from Australia, emeralds from Colombia, garnets from everywhere. Thousands of years after many mines were mined out, in the 1980’s, rubies were found in Vietnam. Beautiful rubies of tip-top quality, rivaling the very finest ever discovered.

And so began the gem rush there.

In short order, a list of many gem types were uncovered in Vietnam: sapphires, spinels, aquamarines, tourmalines, and many others. Less than half a century after the gem hunting began, a mine that produces the most vivid red garnets opened.

Fortunately, I have a partner - Thomas Banker - who has been living in Bangkok for a third of a century. He’s a gemstone expert who was able to make contact with the mine owner of what he and I have dubbed “Valentine Garnets” and begun a supply line that starts in Vietnam and arrives in my hands to be distributed here in America.

For those who enjoy technical details: Valentine Garnets are a hybridized gem consisting of pyrope and almandine with traces of chromium. They are mined from a pegmatite dike in the Luc Yen area.

To date, Valentine Garnets have been well-received by the jewelers who have seen them and begun to make pieces of jewelry from them.

Warning: when you get yours, don’t be surprised when people see it and either ask you if it is a ruby, or simply exclaim: “What a beautiful ruby you have!”

We hope you enjoy sharing the Valentine Garnet story when this happens.