Spessartine Garnet in Albite

Unknown Owner

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MUCH MORE GEMMY In PERSON! These are rare things indeed, as I know from living nearby for almost a decade. Few collectors, even in San Diego County, own a crystal so large and sharp as this one. It is also exceedingly gemmy, MUCHBRIGHTER and more lustrous in person than the pic appears. The garnet measures 2 cm across at widest, and is COMPLETE and wellformed all around. MOST large garnets of this size are cracked, hackly, and just plain ugly because the pegmatite was so disrupted by movement and by acidic solutions that liked to eat garnets away and leave semicrystallized messes behind. This is a small miniature, but a fine one, of a quality that I can say you simply do not see for sale. By worldwide standards, many people consider these to be the finest spessartine gem crystals on matrix one can obtain, with the exception of a very few oldtimers from one small find in Marienfluss, Namibia. Certianly for the US collector, this is a critical addition to the collection. And a colorful one!