Andradite

Unknown Owner

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Not to be confused with the famous Shap granite quarry (the Pink quarry), the Shap Blue quarry was located on the boundary between limestone and metamorphosed rocks. It was known for sporadic occurrences of finely crystallized Epidote and Andradite garnet but good crystals have always been rare. This thumbnail specimen is an off-matrix individual crystal of extremely deep burgundy coloured, glossy Andradite. Although it is a little more than one-third of an overall crystal it shows a least 16 well-defined crystal faces and probably dates back to the 1960s or 1970s. Ex David Hardman Collection, no. 386, this is a small, but really fine individual Andradite crystal for northern England.