SPINELS

Spinel is a very attractive and historically important gemstone mineral. Its typical red color, although pinker, rivals the color of ruby. In fact, many rubies, of notable fame belonging to crown jewel collections, were found to actually be spinels. Perhaps the greatest mistake is the Black Prince's Ruby set in the British Imperial State Crown. Whether these mistakes were accidents or clever substitutions of precious rubies for the less valuable spinels by risk taking jewelers, history is unclear. The misidentification is meaningless in terms of the value of these gems for even spinel carries a considerable amount of worth and these stones are priceless based on their history, let alone their carat weight and pedigree