Spessartine

Item Description

A big deep wine-red crystal of Spessartine from Shengus with minor associated Muscovite blades. The crystal is rather large for the locality, and it's complete all around, essentially a "floater", as it's totally crystallized though it has a distinctive etching appearance on the surface. I can see thin striations on all sides of the dodecahedral faces, so it's a complete crystal. With strong backlighting, a fiery red hue comes through along the edges. A nice example of these well-known Garnets that have been coming out since the 1990s. This particular piece was collected in 1999 according to Kurt's collection catalogue.
From the collection of Kurt Hefendehl (#205 AP), a well-known German collector all over Europe with worldwide contacts to dealers and collectors. He started collecting seriously at the age of 14 and his great and varied worldwide collection reached over 6000 pieces. He was very active mineralogically until shortly before his passing in 2020 at the age of 82. Considering his collection had a large number of pieces, it still had an unusually high standard of quality from most worldwide localities. He particularly specialized in all classics as well as minerals of the Black Forest, where he spent much time collecting. His Black Forest and German subcollections went to his good friend Wolfgang Wendel. We at The Arkenstone have the privilege of offering the remainder of this great worldwide collection through our various platforms.