Almandine (ex Allen Heyl Collection)

Item Description

A VERY hard to find specimen of Almandine Garnet from most likely the Sulphur Mine in Mineral, Virginia. I'm told that this locality is completely reclaimed and buried over, and nothing (including the dumps) can be found that would be of interest to mineral collectors. A 1.1 cm, beautiful, sharp, lustrous, well-formed, fine red color dodecahedron of Almadine sits on grey (iron-stained) schist matrix. If you collect U.S. Garnets, or even more specifically minerals of Virginia, you CANNOT afford to miss out on this one. You just don't see these specimens on the market today, and things like this are only seen scarcely in old collections. This piece comes to us from the collection of Allen Heyl, a well known geologist from Colorado, and the name sake for the Turquoise group mineral, Aheylite. The specimen is accompanied by and old Rocksmiths label.