Spessartine Garnet (gemmy) (7.69 grams)

Item Description

From the discovery several years ago in Tanzania, the best of these crystals are some of the largest and finest orange Spessartine crystals extant! The strong color is a sure sign that the area was incredibly rich in manganese, as Spessartines can range in color from red (iron-rich) to orange (manganese-rich). This particular piece is a notably gemmy, sharp, well-formed, textbook trapezohedral crystal with rich glowing orange color. The piece is nearly a complete "floater" as it's crystallized on all sides, but has a few tiny points of contact where it was attached to matrix. I do not know if more of these specimens will be coming out of the ground as I have seen very few of them on the market in the past few years. Garnet is a well known mineral, but you have to keep in mind that it's quite rare to find fine quality, large (anything over 1 cm is fairly good sized for Garnet in general) orange Spessartines from any locality in the world.