Almandine

Item Description

A deep purplish-red color, single dodecahedral crystal of Almandine Garnet from the lesser-known Minas Brasil Mine. The piece shows well-formed faces, but it has some obvious contacts on a few sides, so it's not damage-free. When strongly backlit, the crystal shows a fiery color internally. For what it's worth, this is the only specimen we've ever had to offer from this locality, so it's a rare esoteric piece that would fit nicely into a worldwide Garnet suite. From the collection of Vasco Trancoso, a medical doctor and prominent mineral collector from near Lisbon, Portugal (https://www.mindat.org/user-11954.html). He assembled his mineral collection over the course of 60 years, and built a fine worldwide display collection that we recently purchased. This piece is pictured on mindat.org at https://www.mindat.org/photo-209016.html. The specimen comes with a label from the collection of Nereo Niveo Biondi of Trieste, Italy.