Hello Dear
I got some crystals and need help to identify this stones , they scratch on agate and hardness is above 7 . They look very beautiful dark red and purple red like photos.
Please help me to identify them and their value.
Thanks
Most likely garnet
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Impossible to absolutely correctly ID these without more info. If you are correct in your assessment that they are above 7 in hardness, then, yes, as jbergman said, probably garnet. These look too small (nothing in photo for scale, so not completely sure) to be worth a lot and most too dark to facet, so not worth a lot. -royjohn
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This is Rhodolite Garnet
This is garnet, not ruby. The clue is the host rock that is on some of the stones. A few of them could be faceted but, like royjohn said, why would you want to. Unless, like me sometimes, one wants to just see if you can facet such a small stone! The whole batch of stones may only be worth a couple of $$.
One thing small stones like that are good for is use them for making inlay.
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too dark to be quality rhodolite.
Hi there dear Steven, we actually do get Rhodolite this coloured in Mozambique, it is rear to fined but we come across it from time to time, it is not often that it goes up for sail but it is around. It is usually very clean deep pink to purple if not a cross of the two hues in facet grad material, with minor finger print inclusions or Cristal cloud’s. with little of this material being sheared or even available to the market it is not often seen but in the dry seasons in Mozambique it is mined by entire family’s that might find between 2 to 5 kgs a year per village. It is not unusual or un common to see a few peaces a year floating threw Johannesburg, But I must say that you could still be on to something their Steven as some of the shapes do hint at being spinel. I would suggest that the material be looked at by a registered gemologist with knowledge in this part of the garnet family as garnets have many different crosses and chemical formulations / forming in there free flowing field in the family group of Garnet. With many different crosses a-curing from different geologically chemically different sights world wide hence the very vast family of garnets including some not even spoken of as yet on most sights such as (Pyralspite) (Tropical Garnets (Rainbow flash Garnets) ( Black Garnets ) and lastly (Blue Garnets ). + there are still unusual and exotically coloured exceptions with in garnets colours being found in both the grossular and the Anduritic family branches of the family tree. There are also some bi-colour specimens every ones in a long while that make it on to the faceting Lap then the gem collectors market.
To me they do look like what I have come to see from Mozambique is gem quality purple Rhodolite Garnets, however as (Steven) had pointed out there is a sir tan shape there in the second picture that points to a spinel is formation rather than garnet, it is unlikely! But I can not stress enough how well most gems are travailed across borders better than most people I know lol.
After having bin found (a gem! ) it is so much safer and better to have them lab tested and checked! As all gems will bear tell tail sights of there birth place much like humans have accents or sir tan features that will hint at place of origin. Many gems in Africa are miss labile or are miss identified by there respective finder’s due to lack of financial aid to get the correct gem study aids to better understand the value or type of gem that they are finding. Many times I have hand to deliver the blow that the ruby is in-fact a garnet or synthetic and that there emerald is actually a tourmaline, or in some of my favourite casses rather opposite!!! 
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Best regards Jarryed.
P.S please forgive and grammar or spelling errors as I had to respond in a rush.
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I bought a few deep red Mozambique garnets years ago and still have them. They are not of the rhodolite color. I do agree that African sourced stones are often a literal mixed bag. Provenance of stones is not included or if, isn’t accurate… I did attend a geochemical society meeting where researchers from the GIA were able to identify provenance by using both XRF and mass spect techniques to detect trace element signatures. most of it pertained to west african sapphires. As these techniques require specialized equipment it’s not cost effective to have cheaper stones sent to the GIA for analysis. Thanks for your reply.
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PS: I am finding the the GIA website is more informative… I’m more interested in the geological origin of the stones than the stones themselves. I joined to get some idea of the valuation of many of the unset stones that I have. I retired from hobby jewelry making a long time ago and need to sell off my stones and precious metals. None of what I have is very expensive with the exception of a few that will need to be appraised along with some jewelry.
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you seem to be an expert at gems. I’m not. Thanks for all of your contributions.
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hi there Steven thank you so much for your amazing large sized complement.
I am actually a GemO as well, I started at 9 years old with the passion for gems that then grew into many formal and informal studies there of from about 13 upward.
I have never stoped learning or studying the gem field as there is always new discovery’s and new research coming available to help better understand gems and there amazing world of colour and secret mixture’s that have bin brewing in the earth for hundreds of millions of years.
I kinda found my feet in garnets because they are so unique as a family of gems and have many colour tricks and treats that are nothing short of a chimera like ability to evolve across the colour spectrum, as well as they are one of the few family’s that boast the full monatery value scale!
Meaning that they can range from a few pounds and penny’s to hundreds of thousands of dollars allowing there to be a little something for every one.
I then moved into diamond cutting polishing and evaluation at 23 and loved that for a few years to lol, but gems where still my biggest love so I went back at 27 and started cutting and started my lapidary and jewellery manufacture again and have never left so I have bin at it a fear while longer now lol lol.
I will probably never leave the industry as it is just my place and the gems are my thing. 
Best regards Jarryed
I like garnet also… they have a nice color and are cheaper than rubies… I have one ring in 18K gold, set with garnets that I made.
The way I look at gems is that they are the best crystal samples of minerals. as such they can tell us a lot about the earth processes that made them… diamonds are a geologist’s best friend. the high pressure inclusions from ultra deep diamonds have given us insight into high pressure temperature conditions where the pressure crushes atoms together into a different, denser crystal form… majorite garnets are an example of olivine being crushed into a garnet structure. Dave Mao, the experimental high temperature pressure physicist, now retired and formerly at the Carnegie Institute, was a pioneering researcher in experimental high pressure tempeerature thermodynamics. Pervoskite Calcium Silicate was, until last year, a theoretical mineral… when an ultra deep diamond from Botswana was found to contain an inclusion of it…the mineral was named Davemaoite, in his honor. the diamond came up from the 440-660 km deep layer, which is where subduction slabs stall out before sinking deeper into the mantle. Deep sourced corundums in ultramafic silica deficient igenous rocks is another scientific curiosity… whether they are intrinsic to the lamprophyre Yogo Gulch dike or xenoliths carried up from even deeper in the mantle is still an open question. Igneous rocks bearing gem minerals remains a curiosity… My most recent correspondance has been with someone who is doing research on carbonatite hosted zircons in Australia… I told him that I do want a copy of his paper once he’s finished it and has it published. The carbonatite is a low thorium carbonatite which is somewhat unusual. Ur/Th ratio is low… with both elements being low… I would expect that Ur would be…there is still a lot of uncertainty about the petrogenesis or carbonatities… of which there are at least three types with three possible derivations… These rocks are unique as they are magmatic carbonates. They are also of great economic importance as they are high grade rare earth element sources, essential for technology. I was a rock collector from the time I was a kid… then I went into making jewelry as a hobby… I bought semiprecious gems as a cheaper alternate to precious… my interest in rock collecting and gems eventually morphed into geochemistry and the science behind rocks and minerals… I still am an amateur but will need formal instruction. Now that I’m retired I am considering a degree in geology… I don’t have the time now… it’s never ceases to amaze that being retired makes you busier than when working. Best wishes for you and your business. I’m not buying gems now but trying to sell them off. I’m on this website to get some idea of how much they are worth.
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Hi there dear Steven. I will respond shortly but in the event That I don’t get the Chans to pleas feel free to contact me on +2762. 836. 4146.
Best regards Jarryed
P.S we are finding more and more of this perticuler Zircon coming out of Tanzania, It would be interesting to know more from your side of the chemistry as you will deferentially have more in-site than me there. I for a very long time have only bin around the cutting, polishing, pricing and jewellery aspects /processes of it all and just use the every day brain but thanks to (IGS) and the friends I am meeting here! in the famous words of a star its all coming back to me now lol. I have forgotten a bit about the chemical side in full admittance lol. It’s still there but in chatting with others in the same filed of passion is the only way to remember or to kinda jog the memory there of.
the zircons that were discussed iin another thread were from central australia and were hosted in a carbonatite rock. Zircons occur onuy sometimes in carbonatites. I don’t know about those coming out of Tanzania. If you know about the geology of the host rocks, that would be the starting point.
From a quick picture look tgey appear to be garnets but so hard to tell.