Spessartine Garnet (Mandarin Garnet)

Item Description

Garnets occur in various environments around the world, in essentially every color of the rainbow. It's important to note that Garnet is actually a group name comprising multiple species, all of which contribute something different in terms of color. Some of the finest orange color Garnets in the modern era of gems are the beautiful Spessartines from Nigeria. These wonderful gems are some of the most popular and hard to find gems Garnet around! When they first hit the market in the early 2000s, they immediately were recognized as being some of the best orange color Garnet ever found, and it seems that the deposit has been mined out. This stone is a good quality, saturated, very slightly included, vibrant orange color gemstone with a "Quantum Concave Round" cut. This material is almost totally pure in manganese content and has very little iron content, which is why the stone is so orange and not red as is often the case with Spessartine. This gem could be called what is being marketed as "Mandarin Garnet", because of the orange color. This particular hue is nearly exclusive to these Garnet gems and that is why it has become so popular and in some cases very pricey. A few years ago, I saw a gem company on television selling material with the same color as this stone for $1,800 per carat! I'm not kidding, and people were buying it! Don't get burned like those people did, and snag this stone at a great price. It seems as though this material has really dried up in recent years, and very little is available on the market, so don't miss out.