For most of jewellery history, spinel was ruby’s shadow. The Black Prince’s Ruby in the British Imperial State Crown is a spinel. So is the Timur Ruby. Both were set, insured and written about as ruby for centuries, because nobody had a reliable way to tell the two apart until the 18th century. The stones were not fakes. The science had not caught up.
That mix-up is the best introduction to spinel you can get. It looks, to the eye, like the fine red and pink corundum it was confused with. It is also its own gem: a different mineral, often cleaner, and — in the colours Sri Lanka produces — one of the most interesting stones we set.
What spinel actually is
Spinel is magnesium aluminium oxide. Ruby and sapphire are corundum (aluminium oxide). They can occur in the same gravel, which is how the confusion started. Spinel forms in the cubic crystal system, so it is often naturally bright, with less of the “sleepiness” that silk can give sapphire. On the Mohs scale it sits around 8, hard enough for pendants and earrings worn often, and for rings if the setting protects the girdle.
Sri Lanka produces spinel in blue, violet, purple, pink and, more rarely, red. Blue and purple are the colours we keep in the current collection. They are not “cheap sapphire”. They are a different gem with their own look: a slightly different fire, often exceptional clarity, and a price that still belongs in handmade silver jewellery rather than in a vault.
Why jewellers quietly love it
Once you have seen a good blue Ceylon spinel next to a commercial blue sapphire, the appeal is obvious. Spinel is often eye-clean. It takes a sharp cut. It does not need heat as routinely as sapphire does, though heating exists and should still be disclosed. And because it spent so long without a famous name, fine spinel is still more approachable than sapphire of similar beauty.
In 2016 the jewellery trade added spinel as a second August birthstone, alongside peridot. That has helped, but most people still walk past it. If you are buying a gift for someone born in August, or for someone who wants a blue pendant that is not “yet another sapphire”, it is the stone we would put in your hand first. See the spinel collection.
How we set it
Our spinel pieces are natural stones, most of them from Sri Lanka, in solid 925 sterling silver. Some sit in a plain four-prong or bezel; others are framed with a halo of American diamonds (cubic zirconia — we do not call them diamonds). Carat weight and origin are on the product page, as with every Enrayge gem.
If you have a spinel already, or you want a colour we do not have in the case, we can make a custom pendant or ring around it. Message us on WhatsApp with a photo. For the sapphire that spinel was so often sold as, the longer version is in our Ceylon sapphire guide.