Spessartine (old - Bill Larson/Pala Intl. Coll.)

Item Description

This Bill Larson/Pala International Collection spessartine garnet is from the initial 1998-99 Chinese finds, where the true locality was not known or was intentionally falsified (Moores' Compendium, 2016). The true Tongbei locality became known in about 2002, when more major finds came to the Western market. As such, this is an early, perhaps unique locality piece. The very sharp, lustrous, mounded dodecahedrons, to 1.8 cm, look very dark brown to nearly black in normal reflected light. BUT, the crystals light up with pretty areas of wine-red translucence under bright light. This piece was on display for many years at the California Pala store. AND these are very large spessartines of a much different habit than you see from most Tongbei spessartines, which are generally trapezohedrons. A RARE style of large size.