Russian Chrome Diopside VS Tanzanite

[Gemsnob]

In my humble opinion if your chrome diopside is the color of tsavorite garnet or mint garnet you are getting the too light stuff. Personally I prefer a more saturated color but you are right it looks nothing like emeralds other than it is green.

I dont think mint garnet is the same color as tsaverite garnet. Mint is way too light. Tsaverite is much more saturated but I think both are the same garnet family.

[Gemsnob]

Heres a Tsavorite.

https://www.gemselect.com/gem-info/tsav ... garnet.php

[JewelryQueen]

My sister's birthstone is garnet and I have bought her several tsavorite pieces and none of them are close to the color of the picture you posted. Of course they are not museum quality tsavorite either, although I agree that mint garnet is lighter than tsavorite.

[Gemsnob]

My sister's birthstone is garnet and I have bought her several tsavorite pieces and none of them are close to the color of the picture you posted. Of course they are not museum quality tsavorite either, although I agree that mint garnet is lighter than tsavorite.

My birthstone is also garnet. Im sure tsavorite cames in many hues. Gem quality is bright and saturated. Just like Shoplc sells lesser quality of Alexandrite, there are various qualites of all gemstones. Color, color, color is what is most important when it comes to colored gems before size, cut everything because you can always recut a poor cut gem. If you happen to ever watch GSN, they sometimes have tsavorite of this color although its out of my budget a lot of the time.

[Hot4TENER]

There may be tanzanite available but it is so pale as to be unrecognizable unless you pay ginormous amounts of money for it. I don't think chrome diopside will ever go as high as the good tanzie for the simple reason that more people like blue than green. That being said there has been a steady increase in chrome diopside since the days years ago when I first saw it on the LC and they were calling it chrome dioxside because they had never seen it before. Technically it also is not a one source gemstone although the good stuff comes from Russia. The key to buying it as an investment stone is to avoid the really light stuff or the very dark stuff (sometimes it is almost black). I love it and if I had the bucks this is far and away the stone I would be stockpiling. It certainly will go up in value not only because of the limited availability but also because the Asian market is a big player and culturally they equate wearing green with attracting money to oneself.

Well cover me in Russian diopside and let the money flow in!

[Vicky]

The Russian diopside is not mined out. It’s much too cold in the areas of the mines to do any work. If they get a weather break, they will be at it again. If you buy it from Shoplc, make sure you see it ON the host, because the lightbox where its magnified 25x makes the stone look much brighter and lighter. Lately there have been several almost black looking Russian diopside. I got fooled with blue sapphires that way. They looked like a beautiful blueberry blue in the lightbox. Received a almost “BLACK” sapphire

[Gem Lover]

They are having trouble getting the good quality material in larger sizes, there is much more of the small size stones. Their are other places that diopside comes from but is not the quality that Russia put out. I love Russian Chrome Diopside, I started buying it from another network about 10 years ago and I still pick up items that I think are nice. I know my first bracelet that I ever got cost me around $69.00 that same bracelet apraised out at almost $1000 recently so it goes to show how much it has increased over the last 10 years.

[JewelryQueen]

Right there with you. I LOVE the chrome diopside from Russia! It is in my top three favorites. It is a shame that the chrome that gives it that glorious color limits the size it will grow to. I bought a beautiful elongated waterfall ring from JTV over 10 years ago that unfortunately came with one of the stones sitting loose in the box. I took it to my jeweler who reset it and tightened all the other stones settings as they were loose too! (see it is not just SLC) I believe I paid about $60 for it which was a deal as it was around 7 ctw. I shudder to think how much it is worth today but I had to sell it when I got sick to help pay medical bills etc. On the upside, so many beautiful pieces that other people can enjoy now.