Spinel Stone Meaning, Value, Price, and Properties

Spinel is a beautiful gemstone found in various colors, most popularly shades of red, purple, and blue. The stone’s durability and vibrant hues rival precious gems like sapphire and ruby but at a lower price thanks to being less well-known.

Spinel gemstones were overlooked and underrated for centuries, largely for being mistaken as ruby and being one of the first gems synthesized.

However, this doesn’t redact from the fact that spinel gemstones are a class all their own and deserve a spotlight.

Throughout our decades in the gemstone industry, we’ve learned a thing or two about underrated gemstones. In our book, every gemstone deserves its day in the sun. That’s why we’ve created this comprehensive guide to all things spinel, from its properties and prices to its past and powers.

About Spinel Stone

Spinel is a semi-precious gemstone, though it’s historically been mistaken for the precious gemstones ruby and sapphire. Some spinels have even been used to simulate colored diamonds.

The confusion surrounding the identity of spinel has led to many monikers for the gem:

• Candite (spinel from Candy, Sri Lanka)

• Zeilanite

• Rubicelle (yellow to orange-red spinel)

• Spinellite / Spinella

• Ruby Spinel

One of the reasons spinels were long thought to be sapphires and rubies was because they were incorrectly categorized as corundum, a mineral mined alongside spinels in abundance.

Like the many sapphire colors, spinels exude various colors, from light pink, lavender, and purple pastels to rich, vibrant reds, blues, oranges, and sometimes, black. What makes spinel continue to rise in popularity is its naturally saturated coloration.It might interest you to know that the spinel birthstone belongs to August, added in 2016 to join peridot. In astrology, the spinel gemstone is lucky for those born under Aries, Scorpio, Taurus, and Sagittarius.

Spinel Specifications and Characteristics

Spinel is an individual magnesium aluminum oxide mineral with the formula MgAl2O4, but it’s also part of the eponymous spinel subgroup, itself under the spinel supergroup. The spinel subgroup encompasses aluminum oxides that also contain ferrous iron, manganese, magnesium, cobalt, zinc, or nickel in their formula.

For clarity, we’ll refer to spinel individually as “spinel” and members of the spinel subgroup as “spinel group” minerals. Spinel is the only group member commonly used as a gemstone.

Common impurities in spinel include titanium, iron, zinc, manganese, and calcium.

Spinel forms a solid-solution series with gahnite (with intermediate members called gahnospinel). It also forms two more series with hercynite and magnesiochromite.

Habit-wise, spinel crystals are typically octahedral; rarely, they form dodecahedral or cubic shapes. The very well-formed octahedral spinel crystals are called “angel cut” in Myanmar. The mineral can also occur in massive, compact, or granular habits.

List of Spinel Properties

• Mohs hardness: 7.5-8

• Color: Varying shades of red, pink, black, purple, green, orange, gray, or brown; Rarely colorless; Never pure yellow or pure green

• Crystal structure: Isometric (cubic)

• Luster: Vitreous or sub-adamantine

• Transparency: Transparent to opaque (usually translucent to transparent)

• Refractive index: 1.712-1.747

• Density: 3.57-4.10

• Cleavage: None

• Fracture: Conchoidal

• Streak: White or grayish-white

• Luminescence: Fluorescence, phosphorescence, and X-ray colors sometimes present, varies by color:

  • Red to Pink Spinel: Red in LW-UV, SW-UV, & X-Rays

  • Blue Spinel: None

  • Purple Spinel: Red in LW-UV, lilac in X-rays

  • Light Blue & Violet Spinel: Green in LW-UV & X-rays

  • Colorless & Light Green Spinel: Sometimes orange/red in LW-UV

  • Orange Spinel: Red or orange in SW-UV & sometimes in LW-UV

• Pleochroism: None

• Birefringence: None

• Dispersion: 0.020 (moderate)

• Optical effects: Sometimes chatoyancy, 4- or 6-rayed asterism, color-change