Vesuvianite

Item Description

This is an excellent, square-pillow-shaped Vesuvianite crystal from Hubei Province in China. This well-formed single crystal has superb luster, is translucent to gemmy that shows off its rich root beer color. The tetragonal crystal is sharp and well-formed with only one area of contact on a single corner where it was attached to the matrix. The aesthetics are great and it's much better in person. These are quite rare and this is an excellent example for the locality. The best ones for luster and color seem to have come out in the late 1990s, and I have seen only a trickle of inferior specimens since. Over the decades since these came out in the late 1990s, several proposals have been made to consider this a new species, and yet I believe it still remains a Vesuvianite in name.