Spessartine on Quartz var. Smoky

Item Description

Bright mandarin-orange-colored garnets to 6mm encrust this sparkling, GEMMY 3-cm-tall smoky quartz point, on a fine miniature from the glory days of the garnet mine at Tongbei, atop a mountain in Fujian Province of China. This was purchased by Ken Roberts in China and directly from the family that ran most of the specimens at the time in the late 1990s and early 2000s (as you can see...he had exceptional taste in chinese miniatures and traveleld there often, starting years before i myself went directly). It is a colorful and jewel -like miniature that just sparkles! There are a few very tiny spots of missing garnets and only one broken, the others seeming to be pristine. The garnets reach 6mm. Note also the tiny inclusion of one GEM garnet, within the GEM smoky tip! We are truly honored to present this specimen from another lot of deaccessions from the collection of Jack Halpern of San Francisco, as featured in the Mineralogical Record, March 2005.