Rob Lavinsky, iRocks.com – CC-BY-SA-3.0 [CC-BY-SA-3.0], via Wikimedia Commons
No cut gems are known. The first discovered specimen is the red crystal in the British Museum in London, weighing 1.7 grams. The color resembles garnet, and the density is that of garnet or ruby. This means that there might be cut gems in existence that have been mis-identified as ruby or garnet. The refractive indices are unlike those for ruby, and the material is so clearly birefringent that it could not be confused with garnet, if tested. Also, a garnet of this color would display the almandine spectrum, a very definitive test.
Painite Value
The International Gem Society (IGS) has a list of businesses offering gemstone appraisal services.
Painite Information
| Data | Value |
| Name | Painite |
| Crystallography | Hexagonal, pseudo-orthorhombic. |
| Colors | Dark red, garnetlike in hue. |
| Luster | Vitreous. |
| Hardness | 8. |
| Density | 4.0. |
| Birefringence | 0.029. |
| Cleavage | Not determined. |
| Luminescence | Weak red in LW, strong red in SW. |
| Spectral | Faint Cr spectrum. |
| Formula | Ca4Al20BSiO38. |
| Pleochroism | o= deep ruby red; e= pale brownish orange. |
Optics: o = 1.816; e =1.787.
Uniaxial (-).
Inclusions: Minute cavities in thin sheets; inclusions of tabular hexagonal crystals (phlogopite).
Occurrence: Burma, in the gem gravels of Mogok. One red crystal was discovered in 1951 and identified in 1957 as a new mineral.
Comments: No cut gems are known. The first discovered specimen is the red crystal in the British Museum in London, weighing 1.7 grams. The color resembles garnet, and the density is that of garnet or ruby. This means that there might be cut gems in existence that have been mis-identified as ruby or garnet. The refractive indices are unlike those for ruby, and the material is so clearly birefringent that it could not be confused with garnet, if tested. Also, a garnet of this color would display the almandine spectrum, a very definitive test.
This is perhaps the rarest of all gem species—not a single cut stone is known to exist, and only a few crystals have ever been identified!
Name: After the discoverer, A. C. D. Pain.
